[CIMC-work] RE: HOT topic -- U.S. shortchanging its soldiers

[Elizabeth Fraser]

Agree. The case of Sergeant Vanessa Turner especially has got a lot of
sympathetic coverage (from Democracy NOW to CNN and elsewhere). Are
there any of the vets groups (or other groups) doing anything (vocally)
about this locally?  Local families banding together?  I wonder whether
the National Gulf War Resource Center will be embracing the Gulf II
vets?  Their website is http://www.ngwrc.org/ (they are a good source
for info on so-called depleted uranium and Gulf War syndrome).  A link
from their website goes to a new American Foreign Legion campaign (talk
about right, left) -- to a new AFL healthcare campaign "I am not a
number, I am one of 300,000 veterans waiting to see a doctor) --
http://www.veterans.legion.org/

It sounds good--but we'd need a local story. This could tie in with
healthcare and econ issues as well as war coverage. -- eliz



-----Original Message-----
From: imc-chicago-working-bounces at lists.indymedia.org
[mailto:imc-chicago-working-bounces at lists.indymedia.org] On Behalf Of
donald goldhamer
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2893 5:44 PM
To: IMC-Chicago-Working at lists.indymedia.org
Subject: [CIMC-work] HOT topic -- U.S. shortchanging its soldiers


A colleague of mine has a son in Iraq.  He pointed out to me that the
Army has announced that BECAUSE IT CANNOT AFFORD TO OUTFIT NEW TROOPS,
it is extending the tour-of-duty of current troops until, perhaps,
October 2004!

The serious shortage of equipment is being repoted on buzzflash.com,
according to my friend, and includes such things as:
 - the army BILLING soldiers for food eaten while in the hospital
 - soldiers PRIVATELY purchasing night-vision binoculars (for their onw
survival)
 - soldiers wearing two armor vests (one in front and one in back) to
    compensate for inadequate body armor.

It seems to me that this is potentially the most damaging condemnation
of the Bush crowd to its key supporters that I have heard of.  It needs
to be checked-out, but it might be an important center column feature.

--Don
_______________________________________________
Imc-chicago-working mailing list Imc-chicago-working at lists.indymedia.org
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-chicago-working