Home for Christmas before Afghanistan!!! {UPDATED}

UpDate: It was announced that they've gotten their goal of the $35,000 needed and will be traveling home for Christmas before shipping out to Afghanistan!!!

These soldiers are coming from pretty high unemployment number counties in South Carolina. Why they're training in Wisconsin only the military can give that answer, what with all the bases in North Carolina and South Carolina you'd think they's have had regional training spots closer to home. This is also probably hitting other units in other parts of the country as well.

Christmas homecoming in jeopardy for Fort Mill soldiers

More than $35,000 must be raised to get guardsmen home before leaving for Afghanistan

But if wives and mothers like them can't raise at least $35,000, their men might not get home for Christmas before leaving for Afghanistan.

Snip

Guardsmen have dealt with similar situations in past deployments.

Under federal military guidelines, neither the S.C. National Guard nor the Army can pay for transportation for the soldiers on leave, said Lt. Col. Pete Brooks, spokesman for the guard. The government can pay for leave after deployment — such as travel home from the war zone — but not before the soldiers are actually deployed overseas.

Snip

The Fort Mill unit as a whole went to Iraq in 2003-04 and many went to Afghanistan in 2007-08. Many in the unit are readying for their second or even third deployment in the past six years to an Afghanistan war zone that is the most dangerous it has ever been.

Bonnie Hoagland, with a husband and two sons in the unit, said the system needs to be changed to allow the federal government to cover travel costs after the soldiers leave home before deployment.

“I don't know any families right now — at this time of year, in this economy — who have that kind of money to come home,” Hoagland said.

Snip

Want to Help?

To donate to the Fort Mill National Guard unit's return home for Christmas, contact:

Wanda Bennett with the Family Readiness Group at 803-519-6292

The Rock Hill National Guard Armory, Family Readiness Group, 126 Airport Road, Rock Hill, S.C., 29730.

The National Guard Association of South Carolina, 132 Pickens St., Columbia, S.C. 29205; 803-254-8456 or National Guard Association of South Carolina...>>>>>

In searching for the news video of the above story, couldn't find it yet at the local station I caught it on, I found another from early last month about North Carolina's Operation Home Front

Operation Homefront helps military families during holidays



The article link gives you what's said in the video if you can view that.

Word is like many groups that seek donations for a whole host of issues many helping the Soldiers, Families and Veterans are hurting as well. These shouldn't be having any problems, but it comes down to the citizens of this country and will cheer on these Wars then Occupations of Choice but if called upon to Sacrifice Themselves they go all 'teabag' meme's with waving "Don't Tread On Me" flags and packin loaded guns in large gatherings with children around!!

If the Military called for funding all these, outside of the Bloated Defense Budgets that no one complains about, these same types and like minded would be screamin foul just like they will in false outrage that soldiers and families of need to resort to asking for donations to have time with their families before going off to the long running occupation of others!!

You may want to find out if your state or locale have similar programs and if they too are struggling with funding.

Postage and Other Economic Outrages Against Soldiers

Letters, never a letter

I get no letters in the mail

I've been forgotten, yes, forgotten

Now I'm a soldier, a lonely soldier

Away from home through no wish of my own

-Bobby Vinton

I recently found that families of military people pay regular postage and shipping costs when they mail packages to soldiers in a war zone.

America ships soldiers off to Afghanistan and Iraq for free. If you come back in a body bag, they ship that back for free, too.

However, we make families who send soldiers socks, food and underwear pay shipping costs.

In a world where we spend billions to bail out Wall Street bankers and run trillion dollar government deficits, our government makes the families of soldiers pony up for postage.

That's not right...>>>>>

So This Was Christmas

This isn't about the following song most know, some understand.

Happy Xmas (War Is Over)


A song I kept hearing, over and over each day almost hourly, as my coworkers wanted to listen to Christmas music at the jobsite, so we switched channels, and the canned programming played this a number of times. I kept wondering if there was a message there or if whoever made up the program list really knew what the song was about, or if it was just about Lennon singing about Christmas, much like the Reagan campaign took to 'Born in the USA' as their own, remember that, nobody apparently knowing the words to!

I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man

[chorus]

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
I go down to see the V.A. man
He said "Son don't you understand"

[chorus]

I had a buddy at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a little girl in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms

Bruce Springsteen

This is about a perspective a fellow 'Nam Vet wrote for the Truthout site, and abit more, called So This Is Christmas.

John Cory, who wrote the perspective, is a Vietnam Veteran. He received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star with V device, 1969 - 1970. Visit his site, you might enjoy.

John starts out with this, posted on Christmas Day, another reason for the song and video:

"A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear."

- John Lennon

Music is a powerful touchstone, so while you're reading this, put on "Happy Christmas (War is Over)." Let it play in the background.

I will leave out some of what John wrote, visit the link to read, but will put here a big chunk of my fellow 'Nam Vets thoughts on this Christmas 2007, the gifts, under the tree, of our present president to the Nation:

They are the gifts a president gives his country; his legacy and promise for the future, his servitude to "We the People" and his vision of America.

So here under the tree, dazzling and glossy in sateen bows and velvet ribbons are the gifts of this president:

Sparkle-laden paper wrapped around a box of Fear. The plastic paranoia sealed package contains all the colors of Fear from brown to yellow to pink and purple. A small booklet of instructions is included on how to apply Fear to every situation and person not "one of us," and how to brush on racism, homophobia and bigotry with the mascara of mendacity.

A flag-covered box of brightly painted brittle toy soldiers and game board, plus interchangeable body parts for when they get broken from too much rough play. Each toy soldier is hand-painted, unnumbered and anatomically neutered to withstand everything but real war. Families not included.

There is the whirring and buzzing latest techno must-have, self-injectable Micro-Thought Chip. A gift from your government to monitor your thoughts and ideas and provide auto electro-pulse correction should you waver from acceptable mind processes. A gift certificate is included for all your left-thinking friends. Let them embrace the light.

A small gossamer-covered box with one of those glass globes you shake to create a snow flurry - only this one encases "Democracy" and when you shake it, a crystal storm of red, white and blue flakes spins madly about until "Democracy" disappears.

And the last gift is a huge box with a thousand ribbons and bows and soft crinkle tissue paper taped and mangled together as though made by a child, but when you get it all unwrapped - it's empty. Or so you think. It is a box of sadness. A place for broken dreams of what has been lost. A place to store the faded Polaroid postcards of the America that once was. An empty box big enough to hold a heart full of holes from nearly 4,000 troops killed by the lies that cradle the deceit and treachery that sold a war for the benefit of the few who line their pockets with the lives of our loved ones. It's a big empty box that can hold the despair of 126 veterans who commit suicide every week in this country. Room enough for the 20 to 30 percent of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD. But not big enough for a mother or father to crawl inside and rummage around for the touch and smell of the child killed or maimed in this war.

But there's one more, almost overlooked:

And then you spot it. The small package under the back branches of the tree, strings of tinsel dripping down and nearly covering the box. So tiny and forlorn. Not the same as the others. It looks so fragile, so precious. And you open it carefully, not ripping or tearing the paper while gingerly pulling the ribbon bows and lift the top off and then, wide-eyed, you smile. It's stunning. It makes you giggle and tremble at the same time. You search for the card, but there is none.

You'll have to vist Johns Perspective to find out what's in this last gift, a gift I doubt was left by you know who!

Now during the Holiday grab fest of materialistic items, at a Mall in Madison Wisconsin, a small group of Pro-Peace activists were giving respect, by reading the names of those killed in the Iraq Debacle, Military and Civilian, as we approarched the day we celebrate as the Birth of The Prince of Peace, the baby Jesus.



Now in the video these activists mention that some of the parents they encountered weren't to happy with what they were doing and stated that this small group were Scaring their small children.

My guess would be that at least a few of these children were thinking "Right mom or dad, this group is Scaring us! Now how about the little children of Iraq as the Bombs are Dropping or the Artillery and others Weapons are fired, or living in a Country being Destroyed, Don't You Think These 'Children' Were Scared, Freightened"!

You see, no matter where adults exist in this world, Kids are pretty damn smart and figured out already that many Adults just plain don't make sense, no matter their education!

Lets hope more kids develope their inner gifts, common sense, critical thought, intelligence, much better than the Adults around them that allowed these gifts to just fade away, never to return!

Happy Christmas??

Christmas at War



Happy Christmas - war is over if you want it



WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES


Happy Christmas (War is over if you want it)