Stop-loss payouts won’t be retroactive leaving out 148,000

Stop-loss payouts won’t be retroactive

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Sep 29, 2008 7:30:37 EDT

A compromise defense funding bill includes a $500 monthly allowance for service members extended on active duty by stop-loss orders.

But the deal will disappoint more than 160,000 people because it is not retroactive as previously proposed.

Instead, about 12,000 soldiers would qualify for payments under the deal announced Sept. 23.

The stop-loss allowance is included in an omnibus appropriations bill that provides one year of funding for defense, veterans and homeland security programs but temporary funding through March 6 for other federal agencies.

Lawmakers are rushing to pass the omnibus bill before ending the current legislative session. Aides cautioned that while most differences have been resolved, the bill is subject to change if that is what it takes to get it passed.

“Everything is a little fluid at this point,” said a House aide who asked to not be identified.

Limiting the stop-loss allowance to troops whose duty is extended after the appropriations bill becomes law holds the cost to $72 million for fiscal 2009 — a small dent in the $487.7 billion set aside in the defense portion of the bill. Making the benefits retroactive would have cost about $280 million.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/airforce_stoploss_092608p/

Of 119,000 absentee ballots sent to troops, only 57,000 were counted last year

About 119,000 absentee ballots for overseas military were requested in 2006, about 10 percent of overseas military. Of those 119,000 ballots, only about 57,000 were actually cast and counted, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Government officials are unable to explain that discrepancy.

In war zone, voting is not the top priority
By Geoff Ziezulewicz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Monday, August 25, 2008

(Second in a three-part series)

The voting assistance officers assigned to help their comrades vote sometimes face challenges in convincing a deployed soldier that casting a ballot should be a priority.

Add the breakneck tempo of military life as two wars are waged and the difficulty assigning and keeping voting assistance officers, and helping troops vote is further complicated.

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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=56969

Words From War Stories Online

For father on 3rd tour in Iraq, family separation the hardest"Like anything in life, the military comes with its advantages and disadvantages. I know we've enjoyed the different cultures and personal relationships we've experienced in the U.S. and abroad. But this is my third tour in Iraq, and this month is the third of my daughter Claire's seven birthdays that I've missed, and the second in a row. Everything has its price."
— Army Maj. Matthew Phelps

Click above to read more of this.


Click the (links) pictures below to read all "Words From War" stories (listed in alphabetical order):
R. Ball Jr
J. Barker
D. Bates
The Berrys
C. Billingsley
M. Bonner
J. Bradley
S. Burgos
The Burleys
H. Butts
J. Cadenas
G. Calhoun
L. Caroe
K. Cate
R. Cortez
W. Crews
W. Dalla Rosa
S. Dearduff
D. DeKoeyer
T. DeKoeyer
R. Dukes
L. Ebert
I. Elbahtiti
M. Forester
J. Fox IV
A. Garrett
S. Gilpatrick
J. Harris
J. Henry
J. Hoffman
M. Howard
T. Hughes
P. Imhoff
R. Jarrard
L. Jean
D. Johnson
P. Johnson
D. Kelley
K. Kravchak
S. Lawson
K. Lewis
R. Lewis Jr.
K. Linderman
B. Mau
S. Maxwell
N. McDonell
D. Miller
S. Mislan
K. Mitchell
R. Mitchell
R. Morris
J. Neilson
D. Pack
T. Padgett
M. Phelps
J. Page
A. Rager
B. Ray
J. Riggs
C. Salvia
W. Schaeffer
Schoenwetter
S. Seymour
I. Talarico
J. Teasley
J. Thomas
R. Walton II
A. Witters
This is a great series I didn't even know was there.

Deploying troops’ pets need foster homes

Deploying troops’ pets need foster homes
Match-up service in S.C. seeks people in Europe and the Pacific to care for animals
By Rusty Bryan, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Monday, July 21, 2008



Europe- and Pacific-based animal lovers wanting to support their deploying neighbors can help out by offering their homes and/or cash to the foster pet organization NetPets.

NetPets, founded by Steve Albin and endorsed by the Department of Defense, matches people willing to care for pets to deploying servicemembers in need of their generosity. So far, his free service has placed some 12,500 pets into foster homes since he began the project two days after the 9/11 attacks, Albin said by telephone last week from South Carolina.

People wishing to help out can sign up by clicking the Military Pets Foster Project tab on the netpets.org homepage. The site contains a form establishing what kind of pets the potential foster home can accommodate.

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Pentagon Breaks Promise to Marines in Afghanistan

Pentagon Breaks Promise to Marines
By LOLITA C. BALDOR,AP
Posted: 2008-07-03 16:25:21
Filed Under: Nation News
WASHINGTON (July 3) - The Pentagon has extended the tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan, after insisting for months the unit would come home on time.

The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is doing combat operations in the volatile south, will stay an extra 30 days and come home in early November rather than October, Marine Col. David Lapan confirmed Thursday.
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In this war, troops get rousing welcome home

In this war, troops get rousing welcome home

By Rick Hampson - USA Today
Posted : Thursday Jul 3, 2008 8:16:31 EDT

WARMINSTER, Pa. — The young soldier hadn’t slept in 48 hours or bathed in 72. Now that he was finally back from Iraq, all Pfc. Justin Gindhart wanted was a hot shower and a soft bed.

But these days, Gindhart discovered, a soldier’s homecoming isn’t always that simple.

To his surprise, there was a troop of motorcycle-riding Vietnam vets to greet him at the airport; a police-escorted motorcade past blocked-off intersections and highway entrances that backed up traffic for miles; an appearance at a support-the-troops rally; and a gathering of neighbors and friends, alerted by fire and ambulance sirens, outside his family’s house. And the biggest shock of all — a reunion with a disabled comrade whose life he’d helped save in Iraq.

“Wow! I thought I was just gonna come home,” the startled private told the crowd that spilled across his lawn and into the street on Father’s Day. “I didn’t expect anything like this!”

He should have. Troops coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan are being welcomed with celebrations that are increasingly elaborate, frequently surreptitious and occasionally over the top.

Like many of those who are greeted like latter-day Caesars, Gindhart was quick to point out that he wasn’t exceptional. He was a 20-year-old medic who’d spent eight months in Iraq and hadn’t been seriously wounded or highly decorated. He was home only on an 18-day leave.

For many communities, nothing is too good when it comes to showing support for returning troops.

“He really deserved something special,” said Gindhart’s mother, Lisa, who had only 18 hours to complete arrangements after learning of her son’s scheduled arrival at the Philadelphia airport. “This is the happiest day of my life.”

She, like many other Americans, said any military homecoming — for temporary leave or to stay home for good — deserves major festivities.

Celebrations such as Gindhart’s reflect a renewed national appreciation of those who serve, said Morten Ender, a sociologist at the U.S. Military Academy.

One reason, he said, is that the home front is asked to sacrifice relatively little for the war effort — no tax surcharges, rationing or draft. So some civilians show their patriotism by how they honor the troops.

“The [Bush] administration has set the tone of going about our normal lives, but people aren’t necessarily comfortable with that,” Ender said. “They want to do something to show their appreciation.”

Sarah Schoen of Port Clinton, Ohio, said that partly explains the elaborate homecoming reception she planned for her boyfriend, Army Sgt. Travis McCleary: “There is a war going on, and we’re here back home, just hangin’ out. This was a way of doing something.”

Diane Mazur, a University of Florida law professor and former Air Force officer, goes further: “What motivates these ostentatious displays is the unspoken, almost unconscious guilt over the way military service works now. A narrow slice of Americans serve again and again. It’s as if we’re saying, ‘We will engage in these very public displays of worship, provided you don’t ask ‘us’ to serve.’”

And there’s something else. Talk to those who stage these welcome celebrations, and it becomes clear that it’s not only about the reception these troops deserve but also about the reception another generation of returning veterans deserved and did not get.

It’s about Vietnam.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/gns_homecomings_070308/

Six Units Get Call for 2009 Iraq Deployment

Six Units Get Call for 2009 Iraq Deployment
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service


WASHINGTON, June 30, 2008 – The Defense Department has alerted six combat units for deployment to Iraq from January to March 2009, officials said here today.
Though the announcement identifies forces for the current level of effort in Iraq, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said, it does not try to predict decisions down the road.

“It’s proper, prudent planning to give units the time to train and to ensure they are notified in a deliberate fashion and well in advance of when they would have to deploy,” Whitman said.

The four Army combat brigades and two Marine regimental combat teams cover about 33,000 personnel. These are normal rotation forces, and all of the units have the capability of performing full-spectrum combat operations.

The Marine units notified today are Regimental Combat Team 8 and Regimental Combat Team 6, both based in Camp Lejeune, N.C.

The Army units are the 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st and 2nd brigade combat teams, based at Fort Hood, Texas; the 10th Mountain Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Drum, N.Y.; and 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the Pennsylvania National Guard’s 28th Infantry Division.

The announcement for the 12-month deployments assumes a force level of 15 brigade combat teams in Iraq. “This is a planning effort for maintaining a 15-combat-brigade level,” Whitman said.

“That doesn’t mean decisions down the road couldn’t affect this,” he added. “You can always have units that redeploy earlier and deploy later. This is a planning effort to sustain the current level of operations.”

The last surge brigade will leave Iraq by the end of July. Some 45 days later, officials in Iraq, U.S. Central Command and the Pentagon will assess conditions in Iraq “post-surge,” Whitman said. Decisions after that review could affect deployments, he said.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=50359

Bush suspends troop pull-out

Bush suspends summer troop pullouts from Iraq 4:14pm EDT
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Thursday announced a suspension of U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer to allow the military to reassess the security situation. Full Article Video

More time, more wounded, more stress, more dead,,,,,,,,,,,,,,wonder if he still calls it a comma?