I found this story today, after hearing about it on the radio. It has left me very angry with the Defense Department, and unfortunately it illustrates just how poorly we are treating the military personnel actually fighting this war. It is really easy to use the troops as props, but it takes common decency to treat them in a human manner after they are wounded.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101302166.html

Turning debts for equipment lost in an ambush where the soldier was wounded over to collection agencies is just plain wrong. The Defense Department owes the troops an explanation, an apology, and they owe it to them to solve the problem immediately.

That fits in pretty well with my military experience. Money grubbing bastards. The $400B+ they get every year just ain't enough, it seems, so they gotta take it from the troops any way they can.

This guy is hilarious:

""They call and they call and they call," he said. "They're nasty to me." Sometimes, he said, he feels outraged. "I don't know how much you want from me. I already gave you one arm and a part of a leg.""

And this guy is clueless:

"Because he had been injured as a reservist, he was told, there was no guarantee he could deploy to Iraq again. "I didn't want to stay in the Army if I was just going to be a warm body, filling a slot," he said."

And this is pretty obvious and despicable:

"Part of the problem is that the government's computerized pay system is designed to "maximize debt collection" and has operated without a way to keep bills from going to the wounded, Reid said."

Thats beyond belief. They charged him for the equipment that disappeared after he was ambushed rescueing an injured soilder.