The Whole Family Joins the Army

[proud2BlibKansan]

http://www.aolcdn.com/jobs/armyfamphoto

Lynette Mendez wears pink sweaters and recently took in an unwanted cat. She is a mother hen who shuttles her daughter, Cheramie, to her after-school job and picks up her kids' friends from work. So it's hard to picture Mendez decked out in camouflage, scaling walls or firing M-16s. But that's what she'll be doing as soon as the paperwork goes through. Despite having a master's degree in accounting, she can't find a job -- so she has joined the U.S. Army Reserve.

Mendez concedes that basic training may be a physical struggle, but the single mom will do it to gain the financial stability she longs for. "I know we're going to be in a better position," she said, sitting in the living room of her fourth-floor walkup apartment in Holyoke, Mass. While she has found odd jobs, she says, "It's never been anything steady. It's been here and there. And it's awful."

The military has become an employer of last resort for Mendez's family, reflecting a national trend toward higher enlistment rates in the midst of recession. Her older son, Samuel Morales, 23, joined the army and left on Dec. 31 for basic training in Kentucky. Ezxavier Morales, 20, decided to go the same route and will leave for South Carolina on Feb. 11. For all of them, it's a way out of Holyoke, which has an unemployment rate of 9.5%.

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Mendez stays in touch with her sisters and mother in Puerto Rico but glosses over her struggles. "I'm ashamed of telling them my problems," she says. "You think you would have been in a better position by now." Mendez worries that her job woes have turned her kids off of higher education. "My oldest will say, 'You have so much schooling, and look at you,'" she says. "It's like they lost faith." Not completely, though, and not all of them. Cheramie, 17, plans to go to college and has dreams of law school. How does she expect to pay for it? She's signed up for the U.S. Army Reserve.

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2009/02/26/the-whole-family-joins-the-army/?ncid=AOL

[MissB]

1. Best of luck to the whole family

And I mean that.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. They are going to need it.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Mission Accomplished. nt

[readmoreoften]

3. And there you have it.

[Webbica]

5. Lynette Mendez family joining the Army

Here's an interesting take on the situation...I tend to agree with it myself.

http://www.eclubamerica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=202&Itemid=1