My 50 year-old uncle has been backdoor drafted. [View All]

[angrycarpenter]

Two days before X-mas last year My uncle received a registered letter from the Army. The letter said that he was to report to an army base 250 miles away in 5 weeks, he had been called back to active duty.

My uncle had been put out of the army after 16 years of outstanding service. He was a ranger. He had served with distinction in the first gulf war, winning the bronze star. He had been stationed all over the world and went to every school the army would send him to. After all of that he was put out prematurely at the end of the first gulf war sometime in mid 1991. He had wanted to serve 20 and retire but he was given a small yearly stipend rather than full retirement benefits.

Flash forward to 9/11. He was about 42 and like everyone else he freaked out over the attacks. He went right down to the recruiting office and demanded to be called back so he could go after Bin Laden. They basically laughed in his face and said he was too old.

So he then and there gave up all hopes of going back. He had already started a business that does alright.A year ago he bought a lot and started planning his retirement home. His youngest has moved out of the house and gotten married.

So here he is 50 years-old and starting to look forward to his retirement and being able to spend time with his wife and family when this letter lands in the mailbox. He was dumbstruck. It gave him 5 weeks to report for active duty. He was able to get an extension on it, he now has to report this Easter Sunday.

This backdoor draft for him means financial ruin. He has a pest control business to run and payments on his house and a nice wooded lot he meant to retire on. He gets none of the large re-enlistment bonuses we have heard about. The army has no sympathy for what this will do to him. They won't even tell him what they want him to do or where he will be.

So he will report as ordered and do what he is told to do because he signed a contract to do it. He has remained in the ready reserve all these years in return for a couple of thousand dollars a year. No one I have talked to has ever heard about an arrangement like that but that is the deal he had. He gave his word and will not go back on it.

I want to hear some conservative hawk explain how this is a good thing for America. How they can laugh in a mans face when he wants to serve and then force him to go when he should be sitting in his porch, in a rocker, with his wife, watching his 6 grandchildren playing in the yard.