December 6, 2004

• WTF?!!! Are they nuts?  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/03/60minutes/main658994.shtml

  
  

  
  

  Rick Howell also thought a mistake had been made when he received his notification last August. He’s 47 and disabled from an accident he suffered in the military.
  
  “I can’t run anymore. If somebody was shooting at me and chasing me I couldn’t run away from them. I can’t, you know, if I lift anything more than 30 or 40 pounds, I literally, the rod in my arm tingles,” says Howell.
  
  He joined the Army in 1981, and became a helicopter pilot. He flew along the DMZ in Korea. Finally, in 1997, after almost 16 years of active service, he retired.
  
  “My goal was to move back and get that life that I never had because for 16 years the Army,” says Howell. “I mean, I gave the Army my life. Of course, you know, I wanted a family, you know. I wanted to marry someone and to settle down and to have a home.”
  
  And so he did. His son was born two months ago. Going back into the Army would be a major inconvenience, to say the least.
  
  But Howell says he’s willing to do it if he can serve in the United States, which he put in the form of a prayer on Thanksgiving this year.
  
  This past week, the Army rejected Howell’s offer and sent him a letter saying his exemption has been disapproved, and he has to report for duty early next year. But Howell intends to keep fighting.
  
  What is he going to do if he has to go to Iraq?
  
  “I don’t have a choice. They’re going to have to come and get me. I mean literally,” says Howell. “They’re going to have to come get me. And at that point in time, if they come get me, I don’t have a choice. They’ll have to drag me away and make me go.”

  
  

  Isn’t it bad enough that the ‘powers that be’ have been extending enlistments of soldiers just months from legitimate retirement? Now they’re calling up former soldiers in their 50s & Disabled Veterans to boot? Have they lost their collective minds?

  
  

  Here’s a thought… reinstate George W Bush to Active Duty. That asswipe never fulfilled his obligation to begin with! Now he wants elderly to serve who haven’t been keeping up with training? These people served their time & didn’t stay in the Active Reserves!

  
  

  What I think may be partially behind this is that the ‘powers that be’ are thinking these elderly & disabled veterans would be ‘cannon fodder.’ This way, the families would get paid the one-time death benefit, rather than the months & years of retirement &/or disability pensions these soldiers may be getting should they live out a normal lifespan.

  
  

  At this rate, I could even receive notice. Can you see me going back into the Navy, with all of my disabilities that the VA is refusing to acknowledge? One in this story was seriously obese! Good thing I was Navy, not Army… They seem to only be calling up grunts.

  • 3:29 am
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