US Soldiers Don't Get a Free Lunch Either

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1022-20.htm

Published on Saturday, October 22, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

US Soldiers Don't Get a Free Lunch Either

by Chris Brauchli

I hate ingratitude more in a man than . . . babbling drunkenness. . . .
-Shakespeare, Twelfth-Night

Once again we are reminded that when a president decides he would like to be a war president, we go to war, to paraphrase Mr. Rumsfeld, not with the accounting system you would like to have but with the accounting system you have. September 30 and October 14 were the reminders. September 30 was the date veterans were told there’s no free lunch. October 14 was the date a report in the Washington Post confirmed it. The September 30 date acquired significance because of a report made public in April 2004.

In that month there was a report that wounded military personnel in hospitals were being required to pay for their meals. It was disclosed that beginning in 1958 hospitalized military officers had to pay for their hospital food at a daily cost of $8.10. In 1981 it was decided enlisted personnel should be treated the same as officers and they, too, were charged $8.10 a day. That happened because service personnel are entitled to a monetary allowance for food known as Basic Allowance For Subsistence (BAS) if not living on a military base.

<snip>
Congress fixed it. Section 1023(a) H.R. 1268 that became Public Law 109-13 prohibits charging anyone injured in Iraq or Afghanistan for their meals so long as they are “undergoing medical recuperation or therapy. . . at a military treatment facility. . . .” Unfortunately, subsection (b) said subsection (a) would expire September 30, 2005 even if the war had not. The war has not. As far as this writer can determine, (a) has. That’s the bad news. Donna St. George of the Washington Post imparted the October 14 bad news.

In her report Ms. St. George reports that 331 wounded soldiers have been hounded by the military following their release from the service for what are described as unpaid military debts. The debts can be incurred in a variety of ways. Here is one.

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[Ilsa]

1. Hey Binka, check this out! eom

[DemonFighterLives]

The bushies only care about the money

Wounded soldiers is no skin off of dubbies a*s; at least not yet.
AWOL Bastard!

[Orrin_73]

2. Nothing in America is for free

its nice to figure that out after you have lost a leg.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. The GI's are "heroes" only when the politicians need soundbites.

They are expendable cannon fodder for ambitious politicians and fatheaded generals.

[Metta]

4. Yet more aggregious, hypocritical and mean spirited violence towards us.

Serving Jesus with a smile yet?