marichiko

I was talking with my friend Lisa whose husband is an E7 in the army with orders for Iraq in October or November. Apparently they don't give the soldiers and their families definite deployment dates, anymore. At some point Lisa's husband will just leave for work and not come home that day because his unit will have been confined to a holding area for x amount of time, waiting to be shipped out.

Apparently this policy was put in place to minimize the ever increasing numbers of soldiers who go AWOL, shoot themselves in the hand or foot, or fabricate psychiatric symptoms when given orders for Iraq. One of the men in Lisa's husband's unit suffers from a medical condition of some sort that causes him to pass out at unexpected moments (no, he's not on drugs). Lisa's husband, himself, has already had two minor heart attacks.

Both men are still scheduled to be deployed in an active combat unit that will be headed straight for Baghdad. The new rules also make it so that a soldier can be stuck in the military for two years or more LONGER than the time he actually enlisted for. For example, if your enlistment is up on October 15, 2005, and your unit has orders to go to Iraq on November 1, 2005 (give or take 3 or 4 crafty months), too bad for you. You will be deployed overseas with your unit in order to maintain the cohesiveness of your company, and you'll stay the full year PLUS whatever vague alloted amount of time after that year is up. Units need to stick together, right?

I'm so glad we have the war in Iraq to keep our minds off the incompetance of FEMA! Thank you Jr.!