The Shield of Achilles: Wounded knee jerk reactions

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Wounded knee jerk reactions

After Jordan Fox, an Iraq veteran, left the military, he received an official letter claiming that he would have to pay back part of his enlistment bonus ($3000 US dollars). The reason is that he didn't complete his full military commitment. Problem was, the reason he didn't complete his service was that he was medically discharged due to combat injuries sustained in Iraq!

Since his discharge was not due to any fault of his own, this was, of course, reprehensible (keep in mind, and the article fails to mention, that he receives disability pay). Whether this was intentional, human error, or simply an automatically generated letter no one is saying (people with non-combat related medical discharges routinely have to pay these back). But that didn't stop bloggers, particularly far left-wing blogs (such as here, here or here) from going wild over the story, and of course, blaming Bush personally. But they were just a little premature...

At Balloon Juice, there was an interesting exchange when John Cole, perhaps sensing that there might be more to the story, stepped in and ask his commenters to cool the rhetoric until all the facts came out. No dice, and some even turned on Mr. Cole himself! Go ahead and read the thread for a few laughs. It's almost funny that after months of viciously calling the current administration every name under the sun (and with blog categories like "Republican crime syndicate - aka Bush administration" and "Republican Stupidity"), he is somehow "surprised" to see his readers behaving similarly...

gypsy howell Says:

If it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that “Clinton did it too,” then I might be willing to concede it wasn’t a policy Bush personally put in place to screw the disabled vets.

Until then though, I gotta go with the the default answer (which has a 99.9% record of accuracy)—- it’s Bush’s fault.

Or look at this unintentionally hilarious comment at Think Progress:

WHY DOES THE MILITARY HATE THE TROOPS?

LOL, why don't we just ask: "why do black people hate African-Americans"? or "why do gays hate homosexuals"? But here is perhaps my favorite:

I knew the signing bonUS was just that a tool to get unknowing young men and women in to fight a war that they wouldn’t volunteer for otherwise. The Republican will stoop to any level to get the poor to do their bidding.

That's right, they will stoop to any level! Just like millions of Americans stoop so low as to pay the delivery boy, hairdresser, schoolteacher, policeman, doctor, lawyer, mailman, fisherman, janitor, etc etc to do things that they wouldn't voluntarily do otherwise... Yes, the Republicans discovered that ancient, sinister secret of paying people to do things. What craziness will they think of next??

Of course, there are the additional non-sequitors: the misunderstanding that the Republican party controls the US military, or that anyone can "unknowingly" sign up for combat in this age of full media saturation of the Iraq war.

And unfortunately for their little knee-jerk reaction, the same day the report on Jordan Fox aired, the Department of Defense officially announced that he would not have to pay the bonus back. All is right in the world again (until the Bush-bashers jump on another issue).

It is good that this was clarified, however. Not completing your enlistment due to faults of your own is one thing. Not completing it because you were wounded in honorable service is another. Such information should have been made plain during the soldier's medical board (a panel that decides if a soldier may stay in the service, must be reassigned to a different job, or be medically discharged) and definitively recorded to keep mistakes like this from happening again.