"In the Streets of Our Own Cities"

A Cautious Man writes: As the President said in a recent radio address: "[W]e are fighting terrorists in Iraq so that we will not have to face them and fight them in the streets of our own cities."

When will someone say to the President, and anybody else who makes that argument, that their claim is just not right? The war is in the streets of our own cities, at least in the places which have sent sons and daughters to serve in the military. As described in the local paper

Army Spec. Simeon Hunte, five months in Iraq, was wearing down. Friends had been injured and killed in guerrilla attacks, he wrote. The country's withering heat sapped energy and morale. Most importantly, the letter said, he missed his wife and daughter and the newborn son, Simeon Jr., he hadn't yet seen.

"He was getting depressed," Shirley Vigilance, Hunte's grandmother, said yesterday. "He said he didn't know how much more he could take. He wanted to come home so badly.

"And now he's coming home in a body bag."


Ex-POW's Family Accuses Army Of Double Standard on Benefit

Depressed, scarred, haunted by the trauma of her captivity and at times unable to sleep, Johnson walks with a limp and has difficulty standing for long, according to her parents.

And now that Johnson is on the verge of her discharge from the Army, insult is being added to her injury, they say. While Lynch was discharged as a private first class in August with an 80 percent disability benefit, Johnson, set to leave in the coming days, learned last week that she will receive a 30 percent disability benefit from the Army for her injuries.

The difference, which amounts to $600 or $700 a month in payments, has infuriated Johnson and her family. They have enlisted Jesse L. Jackson's help to make their case to the news media, accusing the Army of a double standard, insensitivity and racism. Lynch is white; Johnson is black.

EL - One of Jessica's forgotten roommates. This was part of the cases percolating up in the media of the forgotten underreported military wounded and the cheapass way this administration through the Pentagon is treating them.