This article is provided
courtesy of Stars & Stripes, which
got its start as a newspaper for Union troops
during the Civil War, and has been published
continuously since 1942 in Europe and 1945
in the Pacific. Stripes reporters have
been in the field with American soldiers,
sailors and airmen in World War II, Korea,
the Cold War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Bosnia
and Kosovo, and are now on assignment in the
Middle East.
Stars and Stripes has one of the widest distribution
ranges of any newspaper in the world. Between
the Pacific and European editions, Stars
& Stripes services over 50 countries
where there are bases, posts, service members,
ships, or embassies.
Related Links:
Current
Archive
Stars
& Stripes Website
Sound
off in our Discussion Boards
Have an opinion on the issues discussed in
this article? Sound off.
Get
Breaking Military News Alerts
|
|
|
|
|
Your
Two Cents
Submit your stories, news items, or a benefits update
-- and help Military.com bring the best, most important
stories to your fellow servicemembers, veterans,
and family members. Contribute
here |
|
|
February 16,
2005
[Have an opinion about the issues discussed in this article?
Sound
off in our Discussion Boards.]
By Leo Shane III,
Stars and Stripes, European Edition
WASHINGTON — Many guardsmen returning from overseas deployment are
finding their families in debt and their small businesses on the
verge of collapse, according to Sen. John Kerry, who unveiled a
bill Tuesday to help ease that transition back home.
“A small veterinarian’s office or a small contractor, their business
falls apart while their gone,” said Kerry, D-Mass., in a meeting
with defense reporters. “In many cases they’re been sustained by
the goodwill and patriotism of folks in their community so they
can pick up when they come back, but it’s not without a lot of effort
and a lot of work.”
Kerry’s legislation would provide tax incentives to employers who
keep deployed guardsmen and reservists on their payrolls, and create
new loans and grants for self-employed troops to help get their
businesses running again.
“What we can do is try to provide economic incentives to cushion
that impact and facilitate their efforts to survive,” he said.
Kerry proposed many of the same initiatives during his 2004 presidential
bid, and several similar ideas also are being floated in Congress.
Kerry’s bill would also extend military health care benefits to
all reservists and guardsmen, regardless of deployment, and expand
posttraumatic stress disorder counseling services.
The National Military Family Association praised those ideas, saying
that Guard and Reserve families in particular are facing challenges
when their servicemember return home.
“About a third of those in the Guard are making less while serving
than they would usually make in salary,” said Michelle Joyner, spokeswoman
for the NMFA.
“Some private employers have taken it upon themselves to make up
the difference, but there’s nothing that obligates them to do that.
So we’re definitely concerned about what financial impact this is
having,” she said.
Several portions of Kerry’s bill — the health care expansion and
increases in the death benefit, for example — are already being
considered in Congress. Kerry’s proposal also calls for 30,000 new
Army
soldiers and 10,000 more Marines,
whom he says are needed not for Iraq
and Afghanistan
but instead for the future demands of the war on terrorism.
He used Tuesday’s forum to criticize President Bush’s decision
not to send more troops to secure Iraq, and reiterated complaints
from his failed presidential campaign that Bush has not really reached
out to other nations to assist in rebuilding that country.
And he blamed his election loss on the power of Bush’s incumbency,
saying that the administration has since used many of his proposals,
such as increasing the military death benefit and improving national
intelligence.
“They had a bully pulpit that we didn’t have and they have an automatic
trust factor we didn’t have,” he said. “Americans accepted that
I could be the commander in chief. What they were unwilling to do
was shift commanders in midstream.”
Email
this page to friends
©2005 Stars & Stripes. All opinions
expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily
reflect those of Military.com.
|
