30-Day Hold On Return To Iraq While 'Compassionate Transfer' Sought For Military Mom of Troubled Teen
 

December 14, 2004
 

By Steve Miller - WBBM Newsradio 780

CHICAGO -- There is an update in a story WBBM Newsradio 780 first reported last week the story of a 16-year-old girl whose only caregiver has terminal cancer and whose mother was ordered back to military duty in Iraq this week… LISTEN HERE

16-year-old Jennifer Popernack was a school dropout, living on her own, until she reached out to her 61-year-old grandmother almost a year ago.  But the grandmother has terminal cancer - diagnosed less than a month ago.

Jennifer hadn't seen her mother in three years. Not until her mother - Sergeant Heather Moore - was granted leave to come home after the grandmother got sick.

Sergeant Moore had orders to go back to Iraq Wednesday, but now Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky says that order has been put on hold for 30 days - while the Pentagon considers Schakowsky's request for a compassionate transfer to stateside duty.

Still up in the air: where Jennifer and her mother will be if the compassionate transfer comes through - in Chicago, where Jennifer could finish her last two-and-a-half years at St. Gregory High School - where administrators say she's found some stability in her life. Or elsewhere.