I just wanted to talk about a friend of mine who is getting royally fucked by the army. I wish I could help him. I wish I could write an expose on his situation and show people the injustice that is being done to him.

I see this guy and I can't help, but want to help. Is that not what a soldier should want, to help his fellow soldier.

I have witnessed alongside him a great deal of injustices done by the people above him.

Countless number of people have heard his situation and sided with his predicament, but it seems as if no one can really help him or perhaps can't help him.

Sometimes I am not sure who is a greater enemy, the service and its bueracracy or the people involved in this situation.

This is the situation in a nutshell. When my friend first joined he entered with his Masters in Engineering. He is a very educated black man who entered the army with hopes to expand his boundries as well as use the advantages of the Army's Loan repayment program. He was promissed all these things which were also in his contract.

When he got here, the Army had mistakenly promised something they could not. His loan were not eligible for this loan repayment. His amount owed is $80,000.

When he found out he wasn't going to get this he obviously was upset. He makes nowhere what he needs to in the army to pay this back. The minimum payment is around $500 a month. Of course anyone who owns a credit card knows, you don't just pay the min. of balance every month. He is already exceded the deferment time and so he has to start paying.

So he found this out in January.

In the paper telling him that he wasn't getting the loan repayment there was also a portion that told him he could seek a discharge from the army for this.

He started looking for jobs which was able to find where he'd be pulling in $80,000 a year, but first he has to get out of the army.

So he put in his paperwork to get out in January.

It is now July and his paperwork has been lost 4 times. The problem now is, each time they have to re-submit it, he still has to wait 4 months for the paperwork to get approved by the Dept. of the Army. At this point he will be forced to go to Afghanistan with us in the beginning of the year and stay however long we are up there which could be up to a year.

The problem is with the hundreds of dollars he is recurring, by then it could at up to tens of thousands of dollars of accrued debt.

The army says it is all about helping and taking care of its soldiers. In this situation the army has been sorely remiss on its promises to this young man. The problem gets complicated because my friend never really hit it off with the Sgt.'s we work under. He wasn't really the type to indulge in their childish behaviors. He wouldn't join in on the wrestling games in the office. Where he had come from, "Work is Work" and "Play is play."

During Christmas break, he missed his flight back. He called his supervisor to tell him of the situation. His supervisor was not there. He left a message. He caught the next available flight. His Supervisors without haste came in to declare him AWOL. They had even mentioned that he had called to say he has missed his flight. There stance was that he was AWOL. Ok, sounds strict which is fine. Since then I have seen a similar case happen to another soldier, one the Sgt.'s like. He was supposed to be in Monday, but got in on Wednesday. No AWOL paperwork there.

There was even a Sgt. who would be called out of ranks which is not in attendance during morning formations. That is a big deal and my friend only missed on morning formation.

The point is, he has not gotten any breaks here whereas the everyone else has. The rules are definetly not the same for him.

He is 26 and he was drinking in his room which is allowed. He had been stressed about all this and drank too much one night. What did he do...nothing, he went to bed. He locked the door and his roommate wasn't able to get in, so they called the MP's and they knocked his door down. He was in a deep sleep and didn't hear it.

They charged him with another Article 15 for bad conduct. What was his crime? Drinking too much, and falling into a deep sleep. I live next door so I see it all.

I know him so I knew what was going on.

I won't say who, but there is a rampant underage drinking going on in the barracks which the chain of command is very aware of.

They're message put out in formation was drink in your rooms. I shit you not. What did my friend do, drank in his room and he wasn't even underage.

After the incident, they told him that he drank too much and is always a soldier and has to always be ready to be on duty.

My friends told the Commander, you tell everyone to drink in their rooms yet when I do, I get in trouble.

The Commander's message after that was drink moderately, but it is ok to drink.

I am not saying to be a hardass and not let people drink if they want. Does anyone see a pattern of double talk here?

All these negative actions towards him happens in that day, while the one thing he wants keeps mysteriously getting lost and has taken over 6 months to be exactly where he was to begin with. In the army for discharge they need the original. He makes copies of everything so he has documented proof all of these mishandlings.

What is worse is the top Sgt.s in our platoon when I first got here were saying he was shit bag and all this other stuff.

He is an educated black man, pretty much the only minority till I got there. I am not saying these guys are racist rednecks, but how do you think it looks?

At this point a lot of us really support this guy but because we are at the bottom of the chain there is not much we can do.

How can you have leaders taking soldiers out into the field. How can you trust someone with your life when you see them dismantling another mans will.

And now, he is refusing to go into the field with us. I am with him. He has just had enough and doesn't want to go along with things anymore. It is not the field he is wanting to avoid, it is the principle. He pretty much is standing up and saying I am not going to take it up the anymore.

He got arrested apparently 4 times in the same instance for refusing to go. How does that happen. Once you are arrested for something, isn't that mean you are in their custody. So how is it, you keep asking a question and make additional charges for that one act?

So they are sending him in the field after he has apparently been arrested. On top of that they are ordering to take a Pschiatric evaluation.

Here is my thing, he could act crazy if he wanted to and get out. He told me, you know I'm not crazy. I told him I know.

Here is another thing. If they want to pin on him that he is crazy, why send someone you think is crazy out into the training field. Today we pulled weapons with live ammo. Does that seem countersuggestive to what you are implying. If they now want to say he is crazy why send him somewhere where there is going to be training with weapons. I think they know he isn't crazy but are doing this to prove a point.

The other problems are that while he is in the field, he can't see JAG, he can't check on the status of his paperwork.

This is not the first time he has been sent to the field.

Does this all sound fucked up or what?

What is worse is, when I see such blatant injustice in front of me, I wish I could do something. I feel helpless and frustrated that I can't do more.

Today he was also told, he was going because he signed a contract to be a soldier, and a soldier has to drive on. The Sergeant Major told him, it's his fault for joining for the wrong reasons.

Here is my response to that. If the army told you that it wasn't going to pay you anymore, but that you were a soldier in the US army and had to drive on, would you accept that?

Should the new Army of 1 AD campaign focus on that. They say they welcome people for whatever reasons to join. THey say they offer different reasons for joining.

How dare he judge another persons reason for joining. Does a person with a family who needs money for their family, did they join for the wrong reasons. If that same family doesn't get money and the man can't support his family decides he is not going along with it, are you any more able to say "Hey you joined for the wrong reason?"

The end of this is, he had a contract which wasn't fulfilled. He wants out now. Getting paid is in our contract. If anyone wasn't getting paid, no one in their right mind would keep working. Loan repayment is money. $80,000 is a lot.

It is only going to get larger if he stays in the army.

People don't join for just the sake of patriotism. Everyone has their own reasons.

If things have been promised and garunteed, a person can decide on those reason. By that logic, there is no truth in that statement. That is a personal judgement that he didn't like why he joined.

My friend is not crazy, but a good man who has been fucked by the army and his chain of command, one too many times.

Put that in the recruiting posters and see how many people want to take on that life. I swear you really have to look out for yourself and where you align yourself to protect you from getting fucked here. They tell you when you join you lose many of the rights we all enjoy to be a soldier. If you are going to give up these rights, the least that can be done is the ensure justice and fairness remains in the process. THis whole, you're a soldier, you have no rights and tough luck, just doesn't cut it.