Perfect 
“A tribunal is considering how much the MoD must pay a female soldier after she won her case against the Army for sexual and racial discrimination. Tilern DeBique, 28, was disciplined after not appearing on parade because she had to look after her daughter”.
To my mind, this incident gives a completely bad name to the whole concept of the right to work free from discrimination, and just plays into the hands of the foaming Daily Mail readers who like nothing more than to scream ‘it’s political correctness gone mad’ at every opportunity.
The question of the appropriateness of a single mother being a serving soldier in the armed forces – even as a signals technician rather than somebody required to actually shoot people – required to be on call to be deployed to an active combat zone is a whole discussion of itself.
It’s also a fair comment to pose that if the Ministry of Defence is going to actively engage in recruiting overseas, then it needs to make sure it can properly accommodate the overall needs of its recruits.
But as to being disciplined for being late for parade due to being unable to organise childcare at short notice; this is not a normal office environment we’re talking about here – any normal job, it would be a harsh uncaring employer indeed which didn’t offer understanding and flexibility.
But the armed forces are not normal office environments; when you are just about to be deployed to a warzone, you can’t say ‘sorry I’m late, traffic was murder and my childminder let me down’. And the whole point of the way military discipline works is you treat every single day as if you are about to be deployed. You also don’t have a right to not have a nasty howwid drill sergeant say nasty howwid things to you – if you can’t take that kind of environment, then the army isn’t really for you.
In this instance, the army disciplined her (note, didn’t dismiss her), and offered her alternative employment as an option if she felt life in the army was incompatible with being a single mother. Instead she opted to leave and pursue a discrimination case against the MoD, facing a possible payout of of the order of £100,000.