Like an American verse to Rudyard Kipling's "Tommy," veterans are having a tougher time trying to take advantage of some of the incentives that led them to recruiters' offices and into war.Ben Albright is an Iraq War vet who's not getting money promised for his tuition this year. He says the military has diverted his incentive money he contracted for -- to paying for the war he just got home from:
"You see my country is involved in this little scuffle you may or may not have heard about over in Iraq. It seems, in this scuffle, that in addition to not having a plan to win it, they also didn't have a plan to pay for it. Now in an effort to save money and apply it to the cost of the war, the government has seen fit to cut tuition assistance for the rest of the fiscal year for everyone."
"That means soldiers like myself who now want to use the 'benefits' provided by the Army, after having been to Iraq, can now no longer do so. "Earlier this week, I told you about the Marine in Texas who lost his residency status -- and the cheaper tuition that includes -- because he spent two years serving in Iraq.
As Rudyard Kipling wrote more than a century ago:
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"Some things never change. (benallbright.blogspot.com) [HT: BlogTemps.com][Photo Credit: Army National Guard]
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!
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