General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChaptered Out 80,000 veterans who receive no benefits
http://cdn.csgazette.biz/soldiers/A Gazette investigation shows an increasing number of soldiers, including wounded combat veterans, are being kicked out of the service for misconduct, often with no benefits, as the Army downsizes after a decade of war.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Sorry but if you decide to have some sort of misconduct then you lose your benefits. I don't even know why this is news. This should be welcomed.
lovuian
(19,362 posts)is that some veterans are loosing their benefits due to the fact the military budget is being downsized
dsc
(52,169 posts)Earth_First
(14,910 posts)Your response indicates you clearly did not read the article at the link.
Nika
(546 posts)I remember a good friend kicked out in the 1970s because they had found letters to his boyfriend snooping into his briefcase where he worked in an HQ company. In my opinion he deserved benefits, and still does whether he can get them or not.
Bigmack
(8,020 posts)... who never heard a shot fired in anger.
..or got screwed by the Green Weenie.
You actually used the word "misconduct"...
Jesus... are you the fucking student home-room monitor?
Callmecrazy
(3,065 posts)If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
adirondacker
(2,921 posts)TheDebbieDee
(11,119 posts)Kicking soldiers out for BS reasons is/was par for the course between military actions/wars. To throw the (UCMJ) book at a soldier, that is to punish him/her to the maximum extent for a piddling infraction - we called that a " burning ".
haele
(12,682 posts)A sailor at the command I work at was just discharged with a general because his troubled 17 year old had some friends over, brought them to the housing exchange satellite and they were caught shoplifting. There had been a few other issues, mainly noise complaints or petty damage from his kid acting out. Typical angry teenager stuff.
He was finally written up for failure to control his kid and was kicked out over some $400 worth of shoplifted items. He was just your average sailor, too - not particularly ambitious or gung how. Just did his job, tried to keep his nose clean and pay his bills.
19 years of otherwise unexceptional service down the tubes.
Haele
but that's a general discharge under honorable conditions (so full benefits). The article is about people receiving BCD's for their own conduct, but the point of the article is that the number of BCD's from combat vets is much higher than others, suggesting that they are probably suffering from combat induced mental illness of some sort -- and thus should receive medical discharges.
haele
(12,682 posts)It's always worse during draw-down, mainly because while the berzerkers, the bullies, and the psychologically numb and the short fuzed are needed as "point and shoot" projectiles during battle, no one wants to deal with them when it's down-time.
There's little cultural investment in the warrior if not enough people have the reminders of how horrific the damage war does to a loved one.
And if there's little cultural investment, it is "too expensive" to deal honestly with the fall-out from the combat these people are thrust into.
There's less veterans of Iraq and Afganistan than there are members of other "undesirable" groups - minority poor, gangs, hard drug users - so it's just as easy to throw them away like society does with those.
"For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot"
Haele