Help is on the Way

Nice:

My unit, C Company, 44th Signal Battalion out of Mannheim, Germany, has been in Kuwait and Iraq since April and we won’t be returning to Germany until next April. We were recently informed by our chain of command that we would be alloted 21 days of leave. I and others got our leave forms approved in August. My father talked on the phone with me and my chain of command and he was told it was safe for him to purchase my tickets. The chain of command informed all of us here that nothing would change with our leave. The only thing they put out was that we could be recalled from leave if something happened. So everyone’s motivation here is their leave.

Recently, we were all told that our leave had been shortened to 14 days. So now I have $1,100 plane tickets that I can’t use. I work 12-hour days and don’t get much time off. We pull many details on top of our regular shift work.

I just want people to know the way the soldiers are repaid by the government for their hard work.

Spc. Randall Blake Johns
Camp Virginia, Kuwait