My Mom’s A Drill Sergeant. No, Really!

There’s a fascinating Associated Press story on the lives of the Army’s top drill sergeant — who happen to be moms. Being a drill sargeant is demanding work — 18 hours a day, six days a week. Accordingly, these moms have had to make pretty big sacrifices. One drill sergeant mom in the story simply packed her daughter off to live with relatives out of state, another had her mom move nearby and another drops her children off at daycare at 4:30 a.m. and picks them up at 9 p.m. There’s some interesting color in the story about Drill Sgt. Esasha LeBlanc, a 10-year-Army veteran with a 10-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter:

LeBlanc said going home to her children is something that helps her deal with the stress of molding civilians into warriors.

“I need my family time to keep me sane,” she said. Stealing a quick moment over lunch with her children, they chattered about their morning trip to a water park and play times with other soldiers’ children.

“My best friend has a drill sergeant mom!” chirped Asiyanna.

“I want to be a soldier like my mom when I grow up,” Karim chimed in, as LeBlanc offered a rueful smile. All too soon, she wrapped them in hugs and yet another goodbye kiss. “Be good!” she admonished them, heading back to her uniformed charges.

Still, though, I felt like the article didn’t address an important topic. How being a drill sergeant affects your approach as a parent, which is how I like to do things: “Ladies, you call this sorry excuse your bedroom? I didn’t know they stacked dirty clothes that high! Where you from? Northern Virginia? Only two things come from Northern Virginia, lobbyists and bed-wetters. You don’t look like much like a lobbyist to me, so that kind of narrows it down! What? Who said that? Who’s the slimy, communist twinkle toes who talked back to their mother? What have we got here? A comedian? You will not laugh, you will not cry, I will teach you by the numbers! Drop and give me 20!”

Image via the Army.