Army Master Sgt. Kerensa Crum wasn’t expecting much when she walked into an early screening of “Fort Bliss,” a new movie about the struggles of a single mom in the military.
She knows that struggle better than most.
The tattoo on her back marks Crum among those who have served in the “Rakkasans,” the 101st Airborne Division’s 187th Infantry Regiment, with which she deployed to Afghanistan. It’s a reminder of just one of her many tours downrange.
She needs no reminders, however, of her 11-year-old daughter Mia.
“Everything I’ve done in the Army has been for her,” Crum says.
But she also knows her success in the military has come at a cost.
Capturing the cost
Filmmaker Claudia Myers hopes “Fort Bliss” captures some of that cost while exploring the hard realities — and choices — of mixing single parenting with professional life.
“I want to spark a conversation: Can a woman have it all?” Myers tells OFFduty. It’s one thing to ask that among civilians, but it becomes particularly challenging when a mom — or a dad — must leave for a year or more at time, not to mention all the real dangers and anxieties that come with combat deployments.
“I’m not sure the film provides an answer, but there is admission that there is no way to do both without paying some kind of cost,” Myers says.
Her film, which opened in theaters and on-demand Friday, follows Staff Sgt. Maggie Swann, an Army medic and single mom just back from Afghanistan, as she tries to reconnect with her young son and readjust to life after a tour downrange.
According to the Pentagon, one out of every 20 service members on active duty is a single parent. That’s more than 72,000 single moms and dads. And the rates are even higher in the reserve components. It’s a reality most civilians can’t imagine.
Myers, who wrote and directed the film, says the movie was inspired by a single dad she met five years ago while working on a documentary about military life. “I was talking with a group of infantry soldiers, and one of them was a sergeant who had deployed twice to Iraq and was a single father. That struck me.”
The mom wasn’t in the picture, he told her. “I asked what he did with his son when he was deployed, and he said, ‘I leave him with my neighbors.’”
Myers, a mom of two, says that comment hit her hard. “This is a side of the war I’d never thought about, was never aware of. What must it be like for a parent to leave their child for 15 months, let alone a single parent? And on the flip side, what’s that like for the child?”
Ultimate working mother
Filmed in a 21-day blitz at the real Fort Bliss, Texas — with the full support of the Army — the movie goes to some very hard places, ranging from combat and post-traumatic stress to sexual assault among troops and the challenges of intimacy and sex after deployment.
At its core, though, the movie is about a soldier who must “relearn how to be a mother — that war could test something so primal as the bond between a mother and her child,” she says. “It is, in many ways, the ultimate working mother story.”
The film, which stars Michelle Monaghan, who played opposite Tom Cruise in “Mission Impossible III” and more recently was among the lead roles in the HBO series “True Detective,” walks a tightrope between emotional extremes without losing its balance or sense of authenticity.
During one pivotal exchange, Maggie tells her ex-husband that she has re-enlisted and might have to redeploy much sooner than expected.
Upset, the ex (Ron Livingston, of “Band of Brothers” and “Office Space” fame) threatens to sue for full custody. He has had to shoulder their boy’s pain and anxiety during her last tour, and can’t believe she would re-enlist.
Life happens
That’s just one of the scenes that got to Crum.
“I’ve had people say the same thing to me: How could you re-enlist? That I should choose between being a mom or soldier,” Crum says. “We shouldn’t have to choose. Why can’t I be a good soldier and a good mom? What if the military is my best option — my best way — to be the best mom I can be? It’s an honorable way. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
Crum says she has long since gotten used to getting similar judgment from other service members as well who think single troops with kids look for special treatment.
“You shouldn’t get special treatment — I agree, I think that’s fair. But not everyone chooses to be a single parent. Sometimes marriages don’t work out. Life happens.”
Staff Sgt. Mylee Cardenas says the movie could “just as easily have been my life story. Dealing with threats of losing custody, sexual assault, what it’s like to come into a new unit as a female NCO, the emotion of learning how to be a mom again — I went through all of it,” she says.
Medically retired in March after 12 years in the Army, including a yearlong tour with a special operations unit in Afghanistan, Cardenas says, “There was always that question of whether I was doing the right thing for my daughter.”
And then there’s the guilt of actually wanting to deploy.
“There’s a simplicity that you miss. You only have to worry about yourself, the mission and the guys to your right and left.”
Repercussions and rewards
It’s a paradox, Cardenas notes. “You can have it all, but something will always suffer. There will be repercussions. You will miss things. When you get back, things will be different. It becomes this balancing act between your heart and your head.”
Is it worth it? “Fort Bliss” doesn’t try to answer the question.
But Crum pauses when asked.
“I don’t know ... it’s not a simple yes or no,” she says. She does know her daughter has had a better life already than Crum had growing up. And she’s knows it’s been hard, too.
Mia, just starting sixth grade, held tight to her mom’s hand as they walked to her new school in Southern California, where Crum is starting her latest Army assignment.
Crum was surprised. “Not many of these kids want to hold their mom’s hand,” she told her daughter.
“She said, ‘I don’t care. How many of these kids have had their mom go away three times for a year? I’m just glad you’re home.’”
“So, I don’t know,” Crum says again. “Maybe in five years she’ll resent me. But today, I feel like, yes, it was worth it.”
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