US soldier avoiding Iraq ordered to leave Canada

YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY KNOW AT 18 WHAT YOU ARE SIGNING UP FOR!



How can they NOT KNOW ? Only some one living under a rock .
History pretty much explains what it means to be in the military .
That is a pathetic and sad statement .Any one who is to much of a wuss to join and do the job the swore an oath to do should be shot .PERIOD
This country needs more real men
For all the misinformation out there MILITARY GETS PAID CRAP for the job they do ..of course there are some EASY military jobs ,but for the small group that risk their lives doing unreal task its bullcrap pay .


Is that to simple ? or will I lose points for that too


i can not spell for crap

[edit on 8-1-2009 by SFwife]

Really ? That is news to me nothing has evened out so far as far as rent and BAH ...Not everyone lives on post

I just made the same point myself, the pay is crap. when I served my 4 years in the Army it was crap then too!

reply to post by jd140

---

LOL!!! I get about 270 a month for BAS, about 1400 a month for BAH and as an E-5 i make right around 2400 a month basic pay. that is about 49000 a year after 8 years of service.

i work any where from 40-60 hours a week, so on the average i work about 50 hours a week or 200 a month. so i make about 21$ an hour or you could say i make 12.50 an hour with all expenses paid.

what is funny is that i am just getting to the point that i am not considered junior enlisted. for the majority of those serving in combat (ie a PFC or E-3) stationed where i am would get about 1600-1700 a month and about 900 for BAH and 270 for BAS. on deployments you are scheduled to work 12 hours a day at a minimum for 7 days a week. that is 84 hours a week. total pay of 2900 a month or 725$ a week.

boils down to a bout 8.65 an hour or... 5.05 an hour with benifits.... civilians doing the same job in iraq are getting paid well over 80k a year, and civilians doing my job are getting paid about 28.00 an hour plus benifits.

not an oppinionated post here just putting some numbers out there

I live in a 850 a month apartment. My wife works part time and we seem to be doing pretty well for ourselves.

I am an E4 also. So it seems to me that it is money management problems.

lol Really ? My husband is E7 I live in a small apt on the outside of Nashville with 2 kids .My rent is 1029 a month .Maybe you could help me learn to budget That would be lovely


ANYWAY ...I will have to double check but I believe a soldier makes less than 3 dollars a day when deployed .Mine is currently in Iraq I need to ask him and double check ...

[edit on 8-1-2009 by SFwife]

Well, I got out in 1990, so it has been a while for me. Nut I have lived both off post and on post in the barracks as well. Off post when I was married was not too bad, but on post when I was not married sucked.....I hated it. If I remember correctly, as an E-4 I was pulling down maybe $1,700 / Month back then....it was crap.

Nice tattoo by the way SFwife

Thank you

My whole point is that the pay is not as good as ppl think .At least you get what I am saying

reply to post by SFwife

---

its easy... sure you seen stories about war at 18. there is saving private ryan... we were soldiers... haburger hill... but that is just in the movies right?

oh wait! i know! they can find out from the news!!! that is it! because we all know that the news tells us everything about everything without bias or filtering because that is their job!!! right?

OH! i didnt even think about how 18 year olds are always paying attention to the world around them! they know about world affairs and all that stuff!! they never worry about cars and dates and class! what 18 year old really cares about MTV? i mean dont they all see MTV and say "this is stupid put the channel to CNN?"

oooooh i bet the recruiters make sure they set down and explain in full detain what is expected of them! that is the answer for sure!! (if you nelieve that you have never been in the military... PERIOD)uh huh! thats it...

i cant help but notice that your name is sfwife, suggesting that you are the spouse of someone in the special forces. you of all people should hold the greatest concern for the lives of loved ones.

its all cool and fun and games when you are on the CQB course using lipstick rounds. when someone makes a mistake they get yelled at, people laugh, and you gotta wash that powdered paint stuff outta the BDUs... then everything changes when there is lead at the end of the charge and when people make mistakes no one yells at them, people CRY, and you wind up washing BLOOD off your hands. "we need more men in this country" blah blah blah. the manliest of men break down and cry like a baby and beg the lord to take them bakc to thier wives and children, they turn into blubbering slobs, useless in combat and liabilty to the unit. but hey... what do i know right?

I totally agree with you, it is terrible. Seems that alot of things in the military have not changed since I was in.

No Hambuger Hill was not just a movie .I know
My father was there and wounded .Long before I became a military wife my passion was vets .
They get treated like crap in a country they would and do die for .
I have personally been through a lot in the past 7 yrs .I have seen many ppl I love die .My husband could die .
Not all 18 yr olds are the same but even my 4 yr old knows what it means to be in the military .I will never accept any excuse for walking away from a job you agreed to do .EVER .
And yes I am a Special Forces wife ..I could say a lot more but seems like every time I do I lose points on this board lol go figure .

[edit on 8-1-2009 by SFwife]

reply to post by wx4caster

---

At ease. Not everyone is you. I was 17 when I enlisted and I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. I knew that the college, the cool assignments, and the decent pay would be coming with a price. That price might be my life, but I knew that and signed the paperwork anyway.

As I said in an earlier post, it's the US Army! They are issuing rifles for a freakin' reason and that's to shoot the enemy in the face. If someone has a problem grasping that fact, then need to either get out of the military or not bother signing up in the first place.

Now, be a good example and move out and draw fire.

She signed the contract, she should uphold it. She doesn't want to go to a warzone, cool, she can find some way to work things out with her command-because I'm sure they don't want her there if she's this determined not to go. May have to spend the rest of her enlistment in a brig, but she should be able to avoid combat service. And, it's possible that all they'd have done is give her a DD-I know people who went AWOL prior to wartime got those in absentia, and they weren't even prosecuted.

Previous question was about college money going to family if the soldier was killed: the VA website states that surviving family members can get up to 45 months of [educational] benefits. In most cases with current tuitions, that's more then the GI bill. It also states that any payments into the GI Bill fund not actually used as benefits will be refunded to the survivor. Can't get fairer than that.

I know one of my daughters is getting 45 months of tuition, fees, books, supplies, and $800/month allowance paid, starting Sep 08, after my service-and that 's after using my own educational benefit after a medical discharge.

Finally, to the 'recruiter will say anything to get you in, and there's nothing you can do' argument, let me provide an alternative example: I went into the Army in 1986, and after 3 weeks of Basic, I was called into my commander's office for a discussion. Turns out that they wanted me to call my recruiter while they were listening, and confirm what he'd written into my contract. Once he had done so, they sent me out of the office to wait, and I heard some.....heated....discussion. I was brought back in, and informed that my contract wasn't legal, so I was given the option at that time to leave the military without obligations, or to sign a new, revised contract. I signed the new one after some thought and discussion, and went on with my service.

The ones defending her sit here and shout how we don’t know what it’s like in the military so cant comment etc etc.

I think that is what kind of proves our point, the fact that we are not in the military and the fact that we didn’t join the military is because we know what is in store for us. The same as this woman, she knew joining the Military what would possibly happen.

Maybe someone should have given her a dictionary before she was enlisted, but here are a few definitions she could of looked up:

Military:
• of or relating to the study of the principles of warfare; "military law"
• characteristic of or associated with soldiers or the military; "military uniforms"
• the military forces of a nation; "their military is the largest in the region"; "the military machine is the same one we faced in 1991 but now it is weaker"
• associated with or performed by members of the armed services as contrasted with civilians; "military police"

Army:
• a permanent organization of the military land forces of a nation or state
• a large number of people united for some specific purpose
• United States Army: the army of the United States of America; the agency that organizes and trains soldiers for land warfare

Soldier:
• an enlisted man or woman who serves in an army; "the soldiers stood at attention"
• serve as a soldier in the military
• a wingless sterile ant or termite having a large head and powerful jaws adapted for defending the colony

Contract:
• enter into a contractual arrangement
• sign: engage by written agreement; "They signed two new pitchers for the next season"
• condense: compress or concentrate; "Congress condensed the three-year plan into a six-month plan"
• a binding agreement between two or more persons that is enforceable by law



It would be bad to send her to Iraq now as she would not be a good soldier, so she should face the consequences of desertion – even if that means 5 years in military prison and a bad employement record, I mean if you default on your credit card contracts you get a bad credit record, so why should it be different on your employment?

Why should she be treated different because she is a woman and a mother, didn’t people complain for years that everyone should be treaty equally in the military, and now you are complaining because she is being treated equally?

Mikey


[edit on 8/1/2009 by Mikey84]

Maybe I over looked it but what was this womans MOS ?
Mostly likely she would never have to leave the FOB

at 17 you have to have your parents sign you in ... that is for a reason. i do my job every day. i complain about it just like everyone i work with. i am not saying i am gonna go out there and run away, i have been put to my own personal tests with situations i wish i never had to deal with, and i continue on.

the age limit for joining the military is 35. how many people do you know that joined the military at age 25-35? very very few, because they have an understanding that 18-25 year olds dont.

to sfwife:
i am sorry that youlose points for being married to special forces... i think that it takes a stronger person to stand by your husband through all that he has undoubtably been through. kudos to you.

i challenge every one of you people who haev made statements judging this woman for what she has done to go down to the local recruitment and sign up. go do 4 years (although the minimum enlistment is 8... most people dont realize that. when you sign for 4 you gotta do an additional 4 in teh IAR). and see just how you feel about putting yourself in that situation.

I loss points b.c I have been offensive in some comments and one was to simple Nothing to do with SF
My husband has been in since he was 17/18 and he has 10 more yrs to go
The military isn't for everyone and that is a good thing

[edit on 8-1-2009 by SFwife]

reply to post by SFwife

---

E-7 at 9 years??? wow