Military life doesn't make motherhood any easier
It's hard enough being a mother. It's even harder being a mother in the military.
As Mother's Day approached, three area veterans looked back at mixing feeding schedules with tours of duty.
Traci Thrasher of Hermitage, Mercer County, joined the Army as an ROTC cadet at Indiana (Pa.) University, going on active duty when she graduated in 1986.
She retired as a major in 2007 as a recruiting and retention officer with the 99th Regional Support Command in Pittsburgh, ending a career that took her to Germany, Korea and various stateside Army posts. Accompanying Thrasher in her postings was her son, Chris, now 26.
“He was born in 1988 when I was on active duty, so he spent his entire life in the military,” said Thrasher.
Of his father, she said, “I broke off the engagement before I found out I was pregnant, but he was military, too.”
Jamie Shaver of Butler met her now ex-husband while both were serving in the Air Force at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Shaver, who served between 1982 and 1987, gave birth to her son, Steven, in 1986.
“I was an air cargo specialist,” Shaver said. “I loaded and unloaded cargo planes. I was the first pregnant female in my squadron.”
“Back when I was in, it was a little difficult not being able to do my job on the flight lines,” said Shaver of her son's birth. “They put me on dispatch until I could go back to my regular duties.”
“I couldn't breast feed, but other than that I had no problems being a mother in the military,” Shaver said.
“We had to find day care, because we both worked shifts,” she said. “It was a little difficult, but a lot of people were military spouses. They were taking kids overnight to help the other spouses.”
Thrasher said her son was also born in Germany.
“That was my first duty assignment, so he was actually born there,” Thrasher said. “It was overwhelming at times, but I hired a nanny to help raise him.”
“He would go back to work with me in the evenings because I had to go to work then, but the soldiers in the barracks loved him,” said Thraser.
“Any time I showed up with him, they would take the car seat and him and disappear into the barracks, and I would find him a little later when I was ready to go back home,” she said.
Thrasher said in addition to help from friends, her parents would pitch in to help raise her son.
“The year and half I was in Korea, my parents kept my son in Hermitage and raised him,” Thrasher said. “They also kept him while I was going to schools that were more than several weeks long.”
But for Patty Zabicki of Butler, who joined the Army in 1985, a year after graduating from Butler High School, trying to balance the military with motherhood proved too hard.“I started out doing administrative postal duties in Germany,” said Zabicki. Then she found out she was pregnant.After the birth of her son, Ryan, in 1986, she left the service.“It was just too hard to be a mother in the regular Army,” Zabicki said. “You have to go into the field and do operations. I didn't have anyone to keep him.”“You have to have someone to take care of your kids. You had to have a guardian to fill in for you if you are sent out to the field or are sent to war,” she said.Since Ryan's father, a fellow soldier, was stationed in the United States, Zabicki said, “I got the choice of coming back here (to Butler) and filling out my obligation to the military or sending my son home, and I didn't want to be away from my son.”Zabicki joined the Pennsylvania National Guard supply and transportation unit located at 250 Kriess Road, working as a parts clerk and later a truck driver to fulfill her military obligations.While with the National Guard, Zabicki said she met her future husband, and they married in 1987.Thrasher said the Army life must have had some effect on her son because Chris joined the Army himself in 2008.“The Army did help raise him,” Thrasher said. “He always said ma'am and sir to people. He never caused trouble. His high school coaches loved him because he did whatever was asked without any attitude.”While living in Mars, Thrasher said she was presented with another assignment that would have meant pulling Chris from school in the middle of ninth grade. Instead, said Thrasher, “I opted to put in my retirement packet instead.”Today, stationed in Fort Hood, Texas, Chris Thrasher is married. His six-month-old son makes the former major a grandmother.Shaver, too, found that eventually she couldn't keep juggling the duties of motherhood with her military duties.She left the Air Force in 1987.“I would have definitely stayed in for the full 20 years if I didn't have to be separated from my kids for two years,” Shaver said.“I didn't get out because I had children. It was because at a later point in time I wanted to retrain into another job, and I couldn't without being separated from my family and I didn't want to do that,” said Shaver.“I wanted to become a computer repair specialist. I would have trained for a year and then be put on a remote tour to Korea or Alaska and I couldn't take my son with me,” she said.Eventually she and her husband, an Air Force flight engineer who was assigned to a special duty with the presidential air squadron at Andrews Air Base in Maryland, had another child, a daughter, Danielle.Shaver said, “My kids were lucky. They never had to move from Andrews Air Base. They weren't military brats. Their dad flew on a DC-9 associated with the presidential air squadron.”
Shaver divorced in 2012 and came to Butler were she is presently she is the post adjunct of the American Legion Post in Butler.Zobicki also found the obligations of motherhood and military service too much when her twins were born in 1992. She left the National Guard in 1999.“The twins had so many medical problems, that's the reason I got out. It was just a hardship on our family,” said Zobicki.While Shaver said her children had no interest in joining the military, Zobicki said her son, like Thrasher's, signed up for a hitch in the Army.Ryan served three years in the infantry from 2004 to 2007.And like his mother, the Army played matchmaker for him, Zobicki said.“Ryan met a girl when he was in Germany. She's a Georgian who was in Germany on a student visa. I have a grandson, Terrance, whom I've never met in person,” said Zobicki, because his mother had to return to Georgia in 2007.She said Ryan hopes to obtain a visa for the two to come to the United States in August.“I've never met my grandson in person. He will be the most spoiled little boy when he gets here,” she said.Some of the mothers have no regrets about their choice of military career and motherhood.Thrasher said, “I went to college to be an elementary school teacher and joined ROTC as an elective and decided I wanted to join the military.”“The Army taught me the time-management skills to multitask and made me a better mother, ”she said.“I loved it. I enjoyed the 20 years I spent in the Army,” Thrasher said.“I guess it's because my dad died when I was young and watching my mom raise three kids, “ said Thrasher. “She raised us to be self-sufficient. I wanted to be an Army officer and when I found out I was going to be a mom, I didn't want to give up active duty.”“I think had things been different — his father was in Fort Ord — if we had been together and had that support ...” said Zobicki. “I think things would have been a lot different if I had been able to stay in the regular Army.”“I think it is a choice,” said Zobicki. “I loved it. I can't say anything bad about it. I loved the military, but it is hard on families.”
