Citizen-Soldier

A classmate told me a story today about an event surrounding the State of the Union Address that involved her older brother that was just so wrong that I had to share it here.

My classmate’s older brother was born and raised in Chicago, as an adult he moved to Texas where he enlisted in the Army. He was mobilized in Texas and sent to Iraq where he was severely wounded. This young soldier is now recuperating at Walter Reed Medical Center. About a week before the State of the Union, the soldier was contacted by the office of a Senator from Illinois with a personal invitation to be the Senator’s honored guest at the esteemed event. The invite was in appreciation of the soldier’s brave service.

That was until the Illinois Senator found out that the Chicago-born soldier was now a resident of Texas. The Senator decided to uninvite the wounded soldier and to find a soldier who currently lives in Chicago.

Unfortunately for the soldier (who had made special arrangements with the hospital to be transported from Walter Reed to the Capitol Building) nobody from the Senator’s office informed him that he was no longer to receive this honor until late in the afternoon on the day of the State of the Union! Of course the soldier was a might upset at finding this out after doing his best to fit his wounded self into his dress uniform. Not to mention that he was disappointed to find out that the Senator didn’t really have any true intentions of honoring his service but was merely arranging a photo op for the voters back home.

My classmate refused to tell me which Senator it was, but for some reason I just don’t see Obama pulling a tasteless move like this – I wonder about Durbin however after looking at this photo and caption about his guests on his Senate Homepage.

I believe in the military a situation like this would be called a royal cluster-f*ck. I mean seriously Senator don’t play politics with our wounded soldiers’ lives, they are human beings not tin soldiers.

Originally published on February 8, 2006.

It is incredible that 4 years later these shitty wars are still dragging on and wounded vets are still getting the shaft.