OK, some backstory first. When I found out that my old unit was deploying, I begged to get on the deployment. The first thing I did was sign a “try one” contract. That is when you’ve completed your service, and you want to just try out the National Guard. I signed it on Feb 22, and was sworn in at Shenanigans Bar in Leesburg, Virginia with a mug of Guinness close at hand. Since deployment was 18 months I knew I would get stop-lossed, but I was totally cool with that. <\/p>\n
Now flash forward to today where Uber-TAH fan and truth deficient Army Times reporter Rick Maze files this story<\/a>:<\/p>\n By week\u2019s end, about 170,000 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan \u2014 many of them no longer in service \u2014 who were involuntarily kept on active duty by stop-loss orders before Oct. 1, 2008, could be cheering Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee.<\/p>\n At Murtha\u2019s urging, the 2009 emergency war funding bill that will be taken up Thursday by the House Appropriations Committee includes money and authority to retroactively pay $500 for each month someone served under stop-loss orders from Sept. 11, 2001 through Sept. 30, 2008.<\/p>\n The bill would extend benefits to those who were left out last fall when Congress ordered stop-loss payments that applied only to people held on active-duty after the bill became law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So, February 22 to August 28 (possibly longer) I was on stop-loss. So, that $3500, which I don’t feel I deserve, will nonetheless go to a good cause. If Murtha doesn’t get booted over the 50k allegations (including the new one today<\/a>) then it will likely go into his opponents campaign coffers. Maybe some to Soldier’s Angels too.<\/p>\n I just don’t see why anyone should get a bonus for doing a job that they were already paid to do. And how was my service worth $500 a month more than Snipers of Superbowl6Romeo’s when we were in the same unit. Just don’t get the logic of this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"