Recently, the Pentagon has ordered that over 10,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan war pay back reenlistment bonuses given to these soldiers over a decade ago. These veterans all reside in California, a place that nearly a decade ago, was struggling to gain soldiers for the war effort.
In an attempt to gain more soldiers, recruitment officers were told to give unusually high reenlistment bonuses. Now, nearly a decade later, these people are being forced to pay the government back for these bonuses. Here's the catch, these soldiers are not only being forced to pay back something they rightfully earned, but they have to pay it back in interest. Some of these soldiers went to war for their country and received purple hearts for their injuries during combat. Now these brave men and women are forced to take out a loan just to pay back something that should never have been taken away from them.
What our fearless leaders are forgetting is this; how will the government pay these veterans back for the time they gave to their country? How will these people at the Pentagon pay those back who gave everything they could for their freedom and way of life? Some of these soldiers gave much more than their time to the people of the United States, some of these soldiers bled for us. These soldiers earned a hell of a lot more than a $10,000 reenlistment bonus.
I am a nationalistic or patriotic individual; I intend on becoming an Officer after graduating college. I happen to believe that becoming a soldier and protecting those who cannot protect themselves, is one of the most noble duties a citizen can hope to fulfill. Yet, when young men and women sign their life away for this ideal- get stabbed in the back by those who's very interests they protect- I cannot accept that.
Calvin Coolidge once said that a "Nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten;" maybe we should take a moment and reflect on that statement. We owe it to our soldiers to fight for them at home just as hard as they fight for us in war.
