FWIW, I agree with Liz.  The pilot made a deal, and I can't help suspecting that she's using breastfeeding as a smoke-screen for something else entirely.  She's got a better situation than a great many mothers of breastfed babes, and certainly many, many mothers have even less of an option to remain at home with their older infants.  Bet if she got her way, you actually wouldn't find her at home full time with her little one... However, why not some obvious compromise?  Perhaps a year at a desk job, with just intermittent flight time to reduce loss of skills; or maybe a contract allowing her a year of unpaid leave, with perhaps a minimal flight commitment for that same reason, and specific language prohibiting renewal, regardless of a second pregnancy or other family issues.  The nation gets what it paid for, no unreasonable precedent is set, and she gets what she *claims* to want.  She can even decide whether she is more anxious to be home full-time now, or to complete her commitment and be out of the military.  If you ask me, were *breastfeeding* the real issue, she'd have asked for an extended unpaid leave in the first place, rather than a release from her commitment.  Maybe mothering is the real issue - I agree that many women just don't realize how totally they will fall in love with their children. I also agree that full-time mothering is the ideal, but it isn't an option we as a nation make readily available to everyone.  Perhaps she could re-pay her total debt to the military coffers, if this is really important to her.  Sort of like the way that other moms have to accept financial hardships of varying degrees to stay at home.
Unless we're out there fighting for the moms in small businesses who get 2 or 4 weeks off for maternity leave, or the nurses who don't really *get* any break they could use to pump during their 12 hour shifts, I don't believe that we should be helping this woman fight her battle.  IM[not-very-]HO
Willow
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