The following is an email I received today from my cousin, Jason. I think it is good for everyone to be aware of the shit that the army is giving their "volunteers": >>>>>
I am writing the letter that I've been avoiding writing for quite some time
now.
As a soldier in the US Army, my freedom of speech is curtailed when it comes
to military affairs, but the rights of my friends and family are not
abridged as such.
Today I was informed that our departure from Kuwait has been extended for at
least 2 weeks, maybe a month or more. On top of this I got to listen to my
wife weeping on the phone as I informed her of this delay. My kids have been
strung along by these delays to the point that they don't believe I'm coming
home anymore.
As I have said previously, our National Guard company (Alpha Company 1/19th
Special Forces Group)wields little clout in an arena of division-sized units
over here. Although we have been here vastly longer than the divisions who
are shipping home over the summer, we can't get a flight in edge-wise, so to
speak. All officers want to get their guys home, and the higher ranking ones
will do so first, fairness be damned.
Supposedly my chain of command has exhausted all of their resources in their
futile attempt to get the boys home. I think every news agency in America
should be made aware of the outrage being perpetrated upon us; then maybe a
politician can "pull rank" on some of these generals and get us the hell out
of here. The system is broken, and we are paying the price with our
families' tears.
The Army has a hell of a way of repaying its soldiers: even after some of us
lost jobs outright or tens of thousands of dollars in business losses
because of our patriotism, the Army can't find room on one of the 80 flights
that leaves this base daily for us. The least they could do at this point is
fly us all home on commercial flights, as has been done for some of the
active duty units. On this entire deployment we have been lied to,
mismanaged, misused, forgotten and generally jerked around; to detail
examples would fill a large book.
This is not the military I signed up for, and I would discourage anyone I
know NOT to join this outfit! We live in a great country, and there are far
superior ways of showing patriotism than this, like paying taxes and giving
blood during emergencies. If the miiltary continues down the
self-destructive road of abusing highly-trained and motivated soldiers, we
will end up with an Army of low-quality welfare-recipients posing as
warriors whose task it is to defend our great nation; they WILL be found
lacking when the moment of truth arrives and we will go the way of the
Romans into the twilight.
That's my tirade my now; I feel disgusted and saddened by this whole
nine-month debacle, and I think a version of these words should reach every
news service and major politician on this fine Memorial Day, at least for
the sake of all the little ones at home who miss their daddies.
-Jason
Posted by Kristen at May 27, 2003 09:58 AM
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