This is f*Cking BULLS^%t.

[BrendenF11]

Ok, I have been actively sending out letters and emails to my representatives to fix this issue. A few months back the Pentagon said they were canceling the PDMRA leave which guard soldiers aquire while being deployed over seas. This money is meant to help with the reintegration process guard soldiers have to go through when they get home. The pentagon a few months ago said that these soldiers would NOT be getting this extra leave, that they were told and were expecting to get upon their return home.

To me this is a breach of trust between the pentagon and the soldiers that are serving. I understand the policy, and the cost reductions the Pentagon is facing. I have no issue with the leave not being given out in the future, that is fair everyone will go into the deployment knowing that it will not be there. These soldiers however, deployed being promised this money when they returned home, then half way through their tour the pentagon took back on that promise.

Here are a couple of articles on it. Keep in mind the 34th ID from MN served in the longest deployments since world war two by a unit. They served almost 2 years in Iraq, nonstop, they were stop lossed. Many of those soldiers are in Kuwait now serving another tour, they were a major part in the draw down of Iraq escorting and providing security for a lot of the last convoys leaving country.

http://www.stripes.com/guard-soldiers-rail-against-policy-that-reduces-paid-leave-1.171453

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/13/1074166/-MN-Nat-Guard-Red-Bulls-lied-to-by-Pentagon-AGAIN-

I would encourage and greatly appreciate any apache that has representatives to send them letters or emails encouraging them to get these soldiers what they were promised.

Thanks!

[eaglethebeagle]

Thanks for this post. I just clicked the groan thing to see what would happen sorry. This is bullshit they need to follow through on the promise to these men. TO me this reminds me of what the republicans were doing last year with now forcing state employees to contribute personal dollars from their paychecks to their pensions. The whole reason many women and men go into these fields knowing they get underpaid is for the remaining benefits that do exist. So when you strip that away or alter it and effect their pay by forcing them to pay into their pensions it is wrong. There was no negotiation just take it or leave it and tough luck.

This sounds similar as it is in mid service these guys are getting fucked with. The government is responsible for the debt problems we have and secondary we as citizen are responsible because we have just watched these people do the revolving door in Washington with no progress in our national debt or other issues. This is decades of failed politics not just recently but decades. The current regime promised to fix all this and they are doing the greatest damage of any elected office ever.

There needs to be more outrage from us the citizens. There needs to be us the citizens who hold these people to the fire and keep them responsible to their duty to represent us. We as a nation are apathetic and most people dont even follow or care about politics. This is what has got us here.

This is an outrage and these men should be given what was sold to them when they signed up. It is funny that they will try to not pay them but the politicians would never take a pay cut.

[BrendenF11]

Agreed eagle. This issue really pisses me off. A lot of these soldiers, as I said, were on the 22 month deployment. During that time they got fucked hard by the government, they were not given stoploss pay while they were in country, they still did their jobs did them well regardless of the fact that they were not getting what they should have gotten. So this is twice that these specific soldiers are getting screwed over. There are 3,000 from the Minnesota National Guard who are overseas right now and will not be getting what they were promised. That's 3,000 soldiers from our total state MNNG which is only roughly 13,000 soldiers.

Like I said I don't have an issue with this money not being there for future deployments, but these guys were promised this money when they left. That ticks me off.