Waxahachie

The Bush Administration and The Pentagon have shown their desire to "support our troops".I plan to outline these travesties to our soldiers in a series of letters.My son is deployed in iraq,and I have a vested interest in these issues.
The congress recently passed a spending bill with an amendment that "reimburses soldiers for the purchase of certain protective equipment".The wording of a bill passed over a year ago was strengthened to require the Pentagon to reimburse these soldiers and their families-prior to this,it was simply a recommendation.The program, which is effective immediately, would allow reimbursement for combat helmets, ballistic eye protection, hydration systems, and tactical vests, including a variety of body armor inserts to protect a soldier's throat, groin, and collar.
Under the guidelines, reimbursement for each item cannot exceed $1,100, and the items become government property and must be turned in to the Defense Department, unless they are destroyed on no longer usable.The problem is,none of the soldiers have seen a check,after a year of this legislation being in place.I have a problem with our soldiers having to do this in the first place.
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/2005/10/06/buil...
I have a challenge for all of you good citizens.Instead of buying a yellow ribbon magnet from China,donate that time and energy to writing your congressman,telling them to put pressure on Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon.Send a letter to the president asking him to expedite the execution of this legislation.It is inexcusable for a nation at war to send their soldiers unprepared.

Recent events in New York City, involving a very well executed and definitely warranted response to by Mayor Bloomberg and Chief Kelly of NYPD to a terrorism threat, reminded me of a great article I read in July (and saved!). Here's an excerpt from an interview with its author, William Finnegan:

Before 9/11, the N.Y.P.D. had fewer than two dozen officers working the terrorism beat full time. Today, there are about a thousand. Crime-fighting is still the N.Y.P.D.’s primary mission, but counterterrorism has really expanded the operational and conceptual boundaries of traditional police work. There are N.Y.P.D. detectives permanently stationed overseas, for instance, in half a dozen different countries. Ray Kelly, the Commissioner, has gone way outside of the traditional police-recruitment channels, looking for people with military, intelligence, and diplomatic backgrounds, people with deep knowledge of international terrorist organizations. What’s more, he has comprehensively persuaded the entire department to think of counterterrorism as a fundamental part of what cops call the Job.

In the July 25, 2005 issue of The New Yorker, William Finnegan wrote a breath-catching report called "The Terrorism Beat," describing how the NYPD has stepped into the huge gap in Homeland Security as applied to New York City -- to the benefit of all of us.

The excerpt above is from an interview with Finnegan about the piece; the interview is still available online and touches on many of the important points. But you've got to read the original article, about 20 pages.

Let me know if you can't find it.