VFA News Analysis: July 3, 2008

President Bush vows to bring more American troops to the fight in Afghanistan – but how he will, without scaling back in Iraq, where nearly one of every two troops to deploy this year will be a Guard or Reservist, is an open question. Afghanistan is the central front, despite all the attention, blood and treasure the U.S. has spent in Iraq.

As if our troops didn’t have enough to worry about while away from home and family in a combat zone half a world away — now they have to worry about contractor work so shoddy it risks electrocuting them to death. Thirteen Americans have been electrocuted in Iraq because of wiring problems.

A legal loophole may allow war profiteers ripping off the American taxpayer in Iraq and Afghanistan — and endangering American troops there — to avoid prosecution. Chalk it up to whether a war is “declared.”

Homeless veterans – a new battle for survival for those already combat-scarred abroad.

“My heart kind of dropped.” More than 113,000 of the 263,000 military members deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan are parents, according to Pentagon data — more than 16,000 are single parents. At least 155,000 children have parents deployed, or preparing to deploy, overseas.

The strains of the Iraq war are adding up too fast, too painfully, for our over-taxed troops and their families.

There’s no celebration like the homecoming for troops returning from war. Welcome home from Iraq, and Happy Fourth of July.

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