NORFOLK, Va. -- Strong words seen onscreen: “Stop the abuse. Pretty Please”
This was a cry for help on a meme a Facebook page that claims to represent all military kids.
It’s called “Military parents abuse their children.”
Their mission is to highlight what they say is a proven link between military enlistment and child abuse.
Since the page popped up a few weeks ago – as you can imagine – it quickly caused a firestorm of outrage online.
“It`s a slap in the face because I know how much I pride myself in being a good military father,” says Lieutenant Tyree Barnes.
Its military dads like Barnes who are the target of this page.
“That’s when I came home early from deployment,” Barnes says, showing us a picture of him and his son. “So that was my first time seeing him after he was born.”
Barnes says his time as the father of a two and a half-year-old boy has not been easy. For most of his son’s first year, he was deployed.
“It’s really hard to be a father in the military,” he says.
Barnes’ struggle is a familiar one for many in the armed forces, that according to the creators of the Facebook page, makes them all child abusers.
One post demanded a law where military parents would be kicked out of the service and their kids put in foster care.
“It’s tasteless,” Barnes said. “It’s trying to pick the nerves of military members.”
And picking at the nerves of family members like Jessica Hart, a Navy wife who previously served as a sailor and is pregnant with her first child.
“I had that feel where it drops to the pit of your stomach and you just can’t believe that you’re reading this,” Hart says.
Another provocative meme on the page suggests military deployment turns daughters into promiscuous strippers. However, as outrageous as their claims seemed, Hampton Roads has seen its share of military child abuse cases.
In 2013,Virginia Beach sailor Micah Patterson sexually abused and murdered his girlfriend’s baby. Also in 2013, sailor Daniel Lunsford brutally beat to death his girlfriend’s baby.
Experts say military child abuse only accounts for a small fraction of local cases.
Keep reading the article to find out who created the page, and why they took it down.
