Right now, American
men and women are overseas in Iraq serving their country
in the most honorable way. Many of them look forward to
the day when they can return home to their families,
envisioning a joyful reunion with loved ones.
Unfortunately for those who pay the ultimate sacrifice
for their country, this day will never come, and maybe
even more unfortunately, some who do return from the war
will find that their children have been taken away from
them.
Army National Guard Spc. Joe McNeilly, for example,
returned from a 15-month tour in Iraq to his home in
Grand Lakes, Mich. to find that the mother of his
10-year-old son had been given permanent full custody of
their child. Prior to his tenure serving his country,
McNeilly and Holly Erb, had shared joint custody of
their son, Joey. They conveniently and kindly alternated
weeks where they would care for the child. When McNeilly
found out he had to go to Iraq, he decided that giving
Erb full custody was the best thing he could do for
their son. He was assured custody would be returned to
their prearranged state after he came home.
However, when he arrived back in the United States after
his tour in Iraq, McNeilly found that his wife had
persuaded the courts to give her permanent full custody
of Joey. McNeilly found that his custody of Joey had
been whittled down to weekends and holidays.
Weekends and holidays? A good and loving father who had
been trusted to care for his son every other week was
now reduced to seeing him on weekends and holidays. How
can the courts justify such a decision? It seems that
serving your country in a war is justification enough.
At first it was that his tenure in Iraq was classified
as abandonment of the child. That's right; going to
serve your country is now considered abandoning your
family. The court-appointed referee told McNeilly such a
long term absence constituted abandonment and therefore
had produced "custody points" against him.
Since McNeilly's issue began to attract press coverage,
however, the story has changed. The court's spokesman
and Erb's lawyer are now saying McNeilly was deprived of
custody not because he was away in Iraq, but rather
because of his poor parenting skills while he was
overseas. Their proof for this claim: postcards he sent
back which showed U.S. soldiers training with weapons.
That's right our soldiers, who are overseas fighting a
war, fight it with weapons. How shocking! And to think
all this time I thought they were over there throwing
water balloons at each other.
Erb's lawyer said these
images frightened 10-year-old Joey. Well, the
sociologists can pretend every young boy really wants to
be playing with Barbie dolls, and doing arts and crafts,
but the truth is that they would be hard pressed to find
a 10-year-old boy anywhere who has not played "war" or
Cowboys and Indians multiple times. Not to mention
they'd have even a harder time finding a 10-year-old who
hasn't seen a movie or television show with guns in it.
There is no real reason for removing McNeilly's son from
him. In order to get a better perspective of McNeilly's
parenting skills, the court should look at the nine
years in which McNeilly cared for Joey every other week,
and neither Erb nor the court found anything negligent
in his parenting. The courts should never punish
soldiers in this fashion. The feminists in the court
system should not deprive fathers who are ready and
willing to be in their child's life of that opportunity.
Why are these people intent on further destroying the
family?
Sadly, McNeilly's case is not a unique one. In fact it
is estimated that in the state of Michigan alone there
are 15 to 20 cases similar to McNeilly, and it isn't
always the father who loses his child - in some cases
the mother of the child has been deprived of custody
upon her return. These patriots are serving their
country in the noblest way possible and how are they
rewarded when they come home? They expect to see their
children's smiling faces when they arrive home, but are
robbed of it - unless of course it's a weekend or a
holiday. As a nation it is time for us to take a look at
how we are treating our returning soldiers and their
families
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