Homeless with a Laptop (San Diego style)

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THIS IS BULL

Pentagon says stressed troops will get extra time off, not money, under new compensation plan

By Pauline Jelinek

ASSOCIATED PRESS

2:07 p.m. April 18, 2007

WASHINGTON – Troops will get extra days off – rather than “buckets full of gold” – for being sent to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan more frequently, the Pentagon says.

After months of debate on the new plan, Defense Department leaders decided that time off was more in keeping with “the ethos” of military service to country than money – and that rest is more directly connected to the fact that troops are being stressed by repeated deployments, said Michael L. Dominguez, undersecretary for personnel and readiness.
“We weren't trying to find some metaphysical balance between the service you are rendering and buckets full of gold – or any other thing we could do for you,” Dominguez said Wednesday.

“This wasn't about that balance. This was about telling men and women of the armed forces that we know when we ask you to do something extraordinary, we're conscious of it, we're aware of it.”

In a sometimes contentious Pentagon news conference, Dominguez declined to say whether officials had studied whether troops themselves might prefer money, saying it was a leadership decision.

In what Dominguez acknowledged was a complicated formula to explain, the policy starts with giving one day off for every month troops are recalled early and increases as various thresholds are reached.

Fear of funding problems was not an issue, he said.

“The Congress of the United States has been superb and excellent in terms of if we needed something for the troops, they've given it to us,” he said.

Dominguez stressed that the time should not be considered commensurate with troop sacrifices, but rather symbolic.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, soon after taking his job in January, had ordered officials to devise a plan for compensating troops who deploy more often than the standard goal – that is, 12 months on duty, then 24 months off for active duty and 12 months on/five years off for the National Guard and Reserve.

Gates' announcement last week that the 12 months is being extended to 15 months for active duty tours is planned as temporary, until further notice, but the goal is to get back to 12-month tours someday.

Troops are already getting $1,000 extra pay for each tour that lasts beyond the one year.

The new policy relates to those who have their rest time between tours shortened. In the case of active duty, the standard is supposed to be 12 months deployed and 24 months at home station, a 36-month cycle in all. In the case of Guard and Reserves it is supposed to be one-year mobilized and 5 years demobilized. So the new policy is to give active troops one day off for each month they are deployed over 12 of 36 consecutive months. For Guard and Reserve it would be one day for each month deployed over 12 months of a 72-month period.

It increases to two days a month and four days a month when other thresholds are reached.

SDUT

San Diego ' s West End Fence

This is right on the money. I always new she was the real pill for Bill

Live: Sen. Obama announces White House candidacy

Homeless Dumping in LA

Police said the man, who was dragging a broken colostomy bag behind him, was dumped on the sidewalk Thursday in one of the worst parts of the city by the driver of a hospital van. The area is the same location where city officials say hospitals have dumped the homeless before.
Witnesses, all homeless people, began shouting, "Where is his wheelchair? Where is his walker?" Detective Russ Long said Friday. They told officers the driver responded that the man defecated in the van and had to be removed.
"If there is an explanation it just eludes me at this point," Long said.
"He was sliding along on his bottom using his hands. He had a hospital property bag in his mouth, in his teeth, and he was trailing a colostomy bag, which was malfunctioning."
Witnesses told police a van from Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center pulled up to a tiny park in the grimy area near downtown at 10:45 a.m. Thursday, a side door opened and a man, dressed in a green hospital gown and pants, began struggling to get out. The driver looked on.
"His pants fell around his ankles. He fell onto the curb with his legs dangling onto the street," Long said. "He reached down and grabbed his pants, pulled his legs onto the sidewalk. Witnesses said the van would have run over his legs if he hadn't have done that."
Homeless people in the area helped the disoriented man into the park. A police bicycle patrol arrived by chance within a minute and called an ambulance.
The 41-year-old man's name was not released, but he was wearing a bracelet from the hospital, Long said.
Dan Springer, a spokesman for the medical center, did not confirm or deny that the van carrying the man came from Hollywood Presbyterian. He said an internal investigation was under way and pledged cooperation with any outside investigation.
"These are very serious allegations. Our goal is to get to the bottom of exactly what happened. If we determine a mistake of this magnitude was made, we will respond swiftly and appropriately," Springer said.
The man was taken to another hospital. Police did not disclose his condition.
The case comes three months after the city attorney's office filed its first indictment alleging homeless dumping, against Kaiser Permanente Hospital. In that case, a 63-year-old patient from the hospital's Bellflower medical center was videotaped wandering the streets of Skid Row in a hospital gown and socks.
Kaiser has said it has taken steps to see that no more of its patients are left on Skid Row.
City officials have accused more than a dozen hospitals of dumping patients and criminals on Skid Row. Hospital officials have denied the allegations, but some said they had taken homeless patients to Skid Row service providers.
In 2005, Hollywood Presbyterian was accused of homeless dumping. At the time, a top executive denied the charge, but said Skid Row service providers offered treatment and care for some patients who had nowhere else to go.
A recent crackdown on crime around Skid Row has resulted in a migration of homeless people out of downtown, significantly reducing the area's transient population but also putting a strain on homeless service providers elsewhere.
Last month, 875 people were living on the streets surrounding Skid Row, according to a Police Department count. That compares to 1,345 people at about the same time last year.

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