Chaptered Out 80,000 veterans who receive no benefits

[lovuian]

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]

1. Kicked out Veterans`

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]

2. I think the point of the article

is that some veterans are loosing their benefits due to the fact the military budget is being downsized

[dsc]

3. under DADT many of those misconduct dischargers were for being gay lets remember

[Earth_First]

5. Try clicking (and reading) the link...

Your response indicates you clearly did not read the article at the link.

[Nika]

7. Misconduct is not a black and white issue.

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]

10. Spoken like a true candy-ass...

... 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]

4. I agree...

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]

6. Reminds me of the Reagan era. Time to ramp up the urinalysis. nt

[TheDebbieDee]

8. Standard Operating Procedures for all the military branches.......

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]

9. Some of these soldiers/sailors are getting kicked out for spouse or kids misconduct.

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

[Sgent]

11. Yea

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. Mental problems have pretty much been treated with the brig, then discharge

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