by James Glaser
October 7, 2003

Not a lot of good news has been coming out of Washington lately, but here is something Senator Mark Dayton's office sent me on Monday.

"Our wounded and sick troops no longer have to pay for their meals. Passage of bill will change law requiring members of the military to pay for food while hospitalized." Now don't get too excited and start thinking that Congress is starting to support our troops, as this new law has only passed the Senate and still must get through the House and then President Bush has to be talked into signing it.

For over twenty years the United states has been charging wounded Soldiers and Marines for any food they were given in Military Hospitals. We don't know if President Bush thinks we can afford to pick up this tab. Senator Dayton said, "Congress handed the military over $400 billion last year. I don't think it is too much to ask that they pay to feed wounded troops who are in the hospital."

Not only did we give them over $400 billion, we gave them $77 billion extra for Bush's War in Iraq and now they are asking for another $87 billion, of which, $60 some billion is going to the military.

Dayton and Senator Norm Coleman have passed another troop related bill in the Senate and this one pays for the troops plane ride home. Yes we were asking our troops to pay for their return flight after we asked them to risk their lives for us. This is true and tells us once again that Washington does not give a rat's ass for our troops.

"Yesterday the Coleman-Dayton amendment passed the Senate, modifying the current Department of Defense policy of paying to fly troops stationed in Iraq home for temporary leave only as far as a designated location in Europe or the US. The policy does not include additional expenses incurred for troops to continue on to their homes."

Now you want to tell me that our President and Congress are not a bunch of ass holes? These troops should get a limousine ride with police escort all the way to their house. Have you ever seen how the President and Congress ride around, first class all the way?

One time I saw Vice President Walter Mondale coming from the airport, he was going to his home in North Oaks. He had several motorcycle cops and squad cars ahead of him and some behind. His windows were so tinted that he didn't have to look out at us poor working men or the street people.

Those in Power have no idea of what an expense it will be for some Soldier that has several children and needs to fly across country to get home. Remember this only passed in the Senate and who knows if and when it is signed into law, they will pay retroactively.

Congress and the President don't care about our men and women in uniform nor do the Generals at the Pentagon. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld cares nothing for those under him. If any of them did, it would not have taken over twenty years to change the billing of wounded troops for their meals and anyone with an ounce of brains would have brought the troops all the way home for free. Hey, wake up America. Washington not only does not care about these two things, but they don't even care if troops are killed. Remember none of their kids are over there and almost to a man, none of those in the Bush administration ever went to war for our country. Now they are all "bad asses" and even President Bush struts around saying to every terrorist and America hater, "bring em on." Pretty easy to talk tough when you are sitting in the White House.

One more thing you might like to know. President Bush keeps talking about his "coalition." Well here are some of its members: Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Columbia, Czech Republic, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Netherlands, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, Uzbekistan. Tell me we don't give each and every one of these countries lots of money every year. There is also Japan, Great Britain and Australia, but what about Israel and Egypt? We give Israel and Egypt billions and billions of dollars every year and they stiffed us, but still we pay.

These are our new friends. Can you even imagine how hard it was for Mexico and Canada to stand by their principals along with the other hundred and fifty some countries that didn't join in on Bush's war? We really only have about two percent of the worlds nations on our side. Buying Coalition members that combined, couldn't put together any sort of threat does not count in my book. Think about Afghanistan. Bush counts Afghanistan, a country that is only held together by American dollars. Man, has Americas fallen a long ways under this President.

It is sad what Washington is doing to our troops and it is sad that there are so few countries that can stomach what we are doing in Iraq.. The Bush administration is hurting America.