getting pregnant to save your life (women military in Iraq)

[donsu]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=424006

We didn't win this war, not at all," said reserve infantryman Eric Holt, on guard outside the Republican Palace in Baghdad. "I don't know what I'm doing here and I don't like what's happening in this city," continued the 28-year-old from New York State. "It ain't right for the folks here. You know, there are a whole lot of our girls getting pregnant just so they can go home quick."

-snip-

Outside Baghdad the situation is also difficult. Border guards, far away from internet cafés and international telephones, find contacting their families particularly problematic. Forbidden from using military satellite communications, they often stop passing Iraqi traders and ask to use their telephones. A 22-year-old guard, part of a tank unit at the border, said he had not spoken to his wife for three months. It takes at least two months to receive a reply to a letter.

Perhaps not surprisingly, anecdotal evidence points to a growing number of breaches of military discipline. A spokesman said any soldier who fell pregnant would almost certainly be dishonourably discharged from the army and might even face a court martial, unless she was pregnant by her husband.

-snip-

She spoke on the condition that she remain anonymous after her commander ordered troops not to give media interviews. Her colleague, a 26-year-old reservist from Houston who was studying to become a police officer, said she planned to quit the army as soon as she got home. "I've been in the army eight years and I can't do it any more, not after this. We're sitting here like targets and the Iraqis are getting bolder. They're taking a pop in broad daylight." One of the military policemen from her squad had cracked up and been sent home this week after a skirmish with Iraqi attackers, she said. "When I heard we might get another six months I wanted to cry."
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Bring Home Our Troops

[midnitemoleman]

1. Bush should be imprisoned!

These poor kids they were pawns and nothing more. They fought with valor in Afganistan, but greed is killing them in Iraq.