Mothers in Uniform
From KRCC-FM
| 00:05:42
Producers: Eric Whitney
Eric Whitney talks to military mothers who are deployed in Iraq. They tell us what it's like to be serving their country far away from their children.
Broadcast History
Originally broadcast May 7, 2005.
Transcript
*** MOTHERS IN UNIFORM ***
ERIC WHITNEY: On Mother's Day, most mothers, especially those with young children, want to be with their families. But that's impossible for the more than five hundred mothers in the Army who are deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of those mothers are based at Fort Carson. We had a chance to talk to a couple of them by satellite phone from Baghdad.
SGT. LISA KING: My name is Lisa King, I'm out of Colorado Springs, I'm in the United States Army and I'm serving here in Baghdad, Iraq.
WHITNEY: When Lisa King got pregnant in 2004, she was a twenty-one year-old soldier based in Germany. The Army gives pregnant soldiers the option of leaving the service before they give birth, but King not only decided to stay in, she re-enlisted for a second four year hitch. Even though she knew at the time that it would virtually guarantee she'd spend at least a year i...
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Additional Information
- Produced: May 07, 2005
- Added to PRX: Oct 12, 2005
- No language specified
Anthea Raymond
Posted on October 22, 2006 at 09:50 AM | Permalink
Review of Mothers in Uniform
MOTHERS IN UNIFORM
3 Stars
Military moms in harm?s way is the subject of this feature-length segment from Eric Whitney.
Of KRCC. When the segment was made,over 500 moms were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe now there are more. This important, still underdiscussed subject deserves our attention.
Obstacles to the telling include distance and access. The two main voices are both in Iraq ? one comes to us by a very cranky satellite phone. That?s mentioned twice in the short piece. But it doesn?t make up for the distance the poor transmission puts between Sergeant Amy he audience.
A vigilant listener will hear two interesting and probably representative stories. One?s about Lisa King. Lisa enlisted while pregnant ? she has a one-year-old and a husband back at home. The other is about a 30-year-old single-mom sergeant who loves being a soldier. She?s left her twins with her mom.
Both talk about the guilt, both talk about the excitement and the risk: in these latest wars, females pull guard duty and other tasks that put them in harm?s way. The poor tape quality keeps what we hear brief ? unfortunate, given the subject.
This segment could kick off a longer talk show on the issue of ?War and the Homefront? or ?Women and War.? It might also be a nice segment to plug into one of the network?s daily news magazines on or near Veteran?s day. Finally, it has valuable background for someone developing a similar show or segment.
Anthea Raymond
PRX Editorial Board
Los Angeles
October 22, 2006