How (Not) To Cut The Pentagon Budget

Writing in The Nation, Joshua Kors describes the Pentagon’s new way to save money. While we have been spending approx. $100 Billion per year on the war in Iraq, including the $Billions in unmarked bills that disappear from suitcases and satchels on the streets of Baghdad, click here and here we are saving about $1 billion per year — about one per cent — with an accounting move that Ken Lay and Andy Fastow (click here) would be proud to call their own.

Take an injured vet like Jon Town. Classify his injury as the result of a “pre-existing condition” and poof: he gets a Purple Heart but gets no Veteran’s Benefits. And remember that signing bonus? The bonus is contingent on serving full term. If you’re wounded and discharged half-way through your tour — kiss half the bonus goodbye. This is the “Enron-esque” beauty of Regulation 635-200, Chapter 5-13: “Separation Because of Personality Disorder.”

Several of Town’s fellow soldiers in 2-17 Field Artillery, including Michael Forbus, could have testified to his stability and award-winning performance before the October 2004 rocket attack. As Forbus puts it, before the attack, Town was “one of the best in our unit;” after, “the son of a gun was deaf in one ear. He seemed lost and disoriented. It just took the life out of him.”

Here are some numbers: According to The Nation . In the last six years the Army has diagnosed and discharged more than 5,600 soldiers because of personality disorder. And the numbers keep rising:

  • 2001: 805 Cases
  • 2003: 980 Cases
  • 2006: 1,086 Cases from January to November.

“It’s getting worse and worse every day,” says the official who handles discharge papers. “At my office the numbers started out normal. Now it’s up to three or four soldiers each day. It’s like, suddenly everybody has a personality disorder.”

Is this what America stands for?

Is this what President Bush means by “compassionate conservatism?”

Is this what George W. Bush, the candidate, meant when he promised to restore honor and dignity to the Office of the President?

Not according to Bobby Muller at Veterans for America.