If a soldier signs up to put his or her life on the line for their country, wouldn't you expect that their country would consider the contract sacred, and uphold their end of the bargain as a matter of honor?
The "Red Bulls" of the Minnesota National Guard have been down this road before. Days before their deployment was to end in 2007, the Bush "surge" caused them to be extended for an additional four months.
Then, when they were finally brought home, the Army tried to short them one day of service so they didn't qualify for the educational benefits they'd earned on their 22-month deployment. Thanks to the work of the MN Congressional delegation and people like you, the Pentagon had to back down and credit them for what they'd earned.
It gets better. Three years after their deployment, the Bulls were given earned back pay that they'd qualified for, and the Army refused to pay.
Now, the Red Bulls have been deployed once again to the Middle East. And guess what: The military is trying to screw them over again.
According to Megan McCloskey of Stars and Stripes,
The Pentagon has stripped weeks of post-deployment leave from many National Guard soldiers, leaving units already overseas facing a drastically different scenario returning home than they had expected.
Soldiers now in Kuwait with the Minnesota National Guard will receive at least 21 fewer leave days than they were told when they deployed — a month’s pay gone. And more importantly, they say, a month less time to spend with family and to reintegrate before returning to their civilian jobs.
Needless to say, our sons and daughters are not impressed:
“It’s really shady dealings,” Sgt. 1st Class Sean Brown said. “We deployed having made career decisions based on that leave, and then we got here and they stole the card off the table.”
Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Langley had to sell his trucking business for the second time in order to deploy, and he estimates it will take at least six months to rebuild his business. A month’s pay would have softened that transition financially.
“It’s huge,” he said.
Due to come home this spring, the soldiers had hoped to use the additional paid time to decompress and spend time getting reacquainted with their families. Instead, they will be thrown right back into civilian life. Another issue for this group:
It’s a particularly hard break for soldiers who are unemployed, which is about 35 percent of the brigade, leaders say...many soldiers were counting on the leave time as a buffer to help get them by as they searched for a job.
Others are scrambling to change family plans and asking employers to return to work early.
Please spread the word about the Pentagon's shameful lie to our soldiers, and ask your representatives in Congress to get behind the effort to pay the Red Bulls and others what they were promised.
Read the original article at http://www.stripes.com/...