Nov. 11, 2006
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Deployment delayed by childbirth
By Leonard Sparks
AFRO Staff Writer
For one soldier, the hard slog of a year-long deployment in Iraq took a back seat to a soft new baby boy.
Sgt. Trevor Armstrong, preparing for his second trip to Iraq after participating in the initial invasion in 2003, remained behind when his unit, the Franklin, Pa.-based 298th Transportation Co., flew to Kuwait in mid-September.
Armstrong’s unit, then at Camp Atterbury in Indiana, was about two months away from departing when he was told that his wife’s pregnancy—already high-risk because she previously had part of her cervix removed—could involve complications.
“She got an ultrasound—it was probably middle or late July—and they said that there might be complications,” Armstrong said. “I was really worried because I didn’t know if I was going to be able to be there for my wife.”
“Her with a 2 1/2 –year-old baby boy already running around the house and, then, her being pregnant was already a chore for her,” he added. “
Granted 10 days of emergency leave, an “excited” Armstrong drove home to Greenburg, Pa., on Sept. 29, making the six-hour trip, he said, in about 4 1/2 hours. He arrived three days prior to the Oct 4 delivery date and stayed for six days afterward.
“If my unit’s at war, I can’t sit at home being fat and lazy. I need to be here.”
“Normally, childbirth is not something that the Army will send you home on emergency leave for,” he said. “But because it was possible complications to it, it went to a higher level and was considered and eventually granted.”
There he discovered the problem was a knotted umbilical cord and the baby—at 22 inches and 11 pounds—was too big to tighten it down. “It was a great thing just because, the entire pregnancy, my wife and I had been planning that I wasn’t going to be there for the birth of our child, and here we were handed a gift – the Army said, ‘Yeah, let’s send this soldier home.’”
He said his wife was “immensely relieved” to have him there, especially after the 12 hours it took to deliver their first son.
“It was just beautiful,” Armstrong said of the birth. “I got two big, healthy baby boys now, and I can’t be any better.”
Leaving his wife and new son was “tough,” Armstrong said. “I’m a professional soldier—I’ve been in the Army 11 years. And I have two families. I have this family and my family at home. And my wife knows that.”
If my unit’s at war, I can’t sit at home being fat and lazy,” he added. “I need to be here.”