15,000 mobilized for Iraq
Pentagon brass fear reservist walkout
By Dustin Langley
Lt. Gen. James Helmly has announced that next
year he and other Pentagon leaders will be closely monitoring
retention rates in the 205,000-person Army Reserve, which he
heads. That will be when soldiers stationed in Iraq come off
long tours of duty. Will they leave the reserves? "Retention is
what I am most worried about. It is my No. 1 concern," Helmly
said. (USA Today, Sept. 30)
The Pentagon had mobilized two more Army National Guard
brigades, numbering more than 10,000 troops, for deployment to
Iraq and notified another 5,000 soldiers that they might be
next. The 30th Infantry Brigade from North Carolina and the
39th Infantry Brigade from Arkansas will mobilize in early
October.
A Sept. 27 Department of Defense statement said: "These
units can expect to be in the Iraqi theater for up to 12
months. The total length of mobilization is up to 18 months to
allow time for equipping, training, mobilizing, leave and
demobilizing activities."
Gen. Peter Pace, vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
said more U.S. National Guard and reserve units could be called
to serve in Iraq if the United States fails to convince other
countries to join the occupation forces there. "By around the
end of October, beginning of November we should be alerting the
forces that need to be called up," he told reporters.
With Iraqi resistance continuing, the Pentagon announced in
early September that tours of duty would be extended to a year
for both regular and reserve soldiers.
The summer saw growing dissatisfaction among U.S. troops in
Iraq--as well as increasing complaints from family members at
home, some of whom have become anti-occupation activists.
Fernando Suarez de Solar, whose son Marine Lance Corp. Jesus
Suarez de Solar was killed in Iraq, recently said: "I lost my
son in this illegal war. My grandson lost his father in this
Bush war. And I ask you, Mr. President, how many kids do you
need for this illegal war?" (Stars & Stripes, Aug. 14)
Troops in Iraq face blistering heat, lengthening deployments
and continuing resistance. They are growing angrier. One
officer said: "They vent to anyone who will listen. They write
letters, they cry, they yell. Many of them walk around looking
visibly tired and depressed. ... We feel like pawns in a game
that we have no voice [in]."
"Make no mistake, the level of morale for most soldiers that
I've seen has hit rock bottom," said another soldier, an
officer from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq.
(Christian Science Monitor, July 7)
"The way we have been treated and the continuous lies told
to our families back home has devastated us all," a soldier in
Iraq wrote in a letter to Congress. (CSM, July 7)
A Sept. 26 announcement of the call-up came just as 192
soldiers arrived home from Iraq for two weeks, the first in a
rest and recuperation program apparently intended to reduce
complaints from families and GIs.
Some troops have to pay their way home
But even this program, which will eventually be expanded to
include 800 troops daily, is drawing fire from military
families. It's because the military is only paying for flights
as far as Baltimore. Event ually, the Pentagon claims, it will
also have flights to Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth and Los
Angeles.
Soldiers who live outside these cities will have to pay for
their own fare to get the rest of the way home. Because of the
uncertain scheduling, they must purchase the ticket on the same
day, when it is most expensive.
Jan Hogan has two nephews stationed in Iraq. Hogan checked
the price of a same-day ticket from Baltimore to St. Paul,
Minn., and was quoted $1,200. A private in the Army makes just
over $1,000 a month. She said President George W. Bush should
use some of the money collected in his campaign fundraising
tour to help fly the troops the last few miles home.
"I'd like to take some of those millions he raised and help
those two boys as well as all the others," Hogan said of her
nephews. (Associated Press, Sept. 27)
Plus $8.10 a day for hospital meals
It's not just airfare that the soldiers will have to pay
for. Hospitalized troops, including those wounded in Iraq and
Afghan istan, are being charged for their meals: $8.10 a
day.
"Some things don't meet the common-sense test, and this is
one of them," said a soldier injured in Iraq in June. He has
received two meal bills, one for $24.30 from the Landstuhl
Regional Medical Center in Germany, and a second for more than
$300 from the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
"It's not a good precedent to have when a service member,
having received wounds in Iraq, to see the first correspondence
from his government after he gets out is a bill to pay for the
hospital stay," said the 16-year Army veteran, who asked his
name not be used for fear of reprisal.
Since GIs get a meal allowance of $8.10, the Pentagon wants
to get it back. Said Lt. Col. Rose-Ann Lynch, a Pentagon
spokesperson, "The law now in effect was set in place to
prevent troops from double-dipping."
Meanwhile, U.S. corporations are more than "double dipping."
Their wealthy owners are pocketing millions of dollars in
contracts from the colonial occupation of Iraq while receiving
huge tax cuts from the Bush administration.
According to the Aug. 28 Washington Post, Halliburton, whose
former head, Vice President Dick Cheney, still gets "deferred
compensation" of up to $1 million a year, has won more than
$1.7 billion in contracts in Iraq. The firm stands to make
hundreds of millions more under a no-bid contract awarded by
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Reprinted from the Oct. 9, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page