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unixronin: Galen the technomage, from Babylon 5: Crusade (Default)
Unixronin

December 2012

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October 19th, 2005

unixronin: The caduceus (Medical/Health)
Wednesday, October 19th, 2005 03:36 pm

Three things to note:

First, surgery is scheduled to remove the bone spur on my toe on Wednesday November 2 at 1300E.

Second, Dr. Kaufman's opinion is that the restricted motion in my left ankle is due to traumatic arthritis in two of the joints within the ankle, and that -- as I'd thought from the start -- it's not an achilles-tendon issue, there is bone-on-bone blockage.

Third, although such issues are normally addressed by fusion of the ankle, I came up with an idea for how we might be able to correct the problem or at least improve the situation by moving what range of motion I have into a more useful range, and Dr. Kaufman believes it may work.  It's going to take some farily in-depth study to see if it's feasible though, and if we try it, I expect I'll be non-weight-bearing on that leg for probably six to eight weeks.

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unixronin: The kanji for "chugo" (Duty/loyalty)
Wednesday, October 19th, 2005 03:40 pm

January 2005:  The Pentagon offers a $15,000 bonus to National Guard and Army Reserve members who agree to extend their enlistments by six years.

April 2005:  On the orders of the Secretary of Defense, the Pentagon reneges on the promise.

A Pentagon spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, confirmed the bonuses had been canceled, saying they violated Pentagon policies because they duplicated other programs.  She said Guard and Reserve members would be eligible for other bonuses.

Krenke said some soldiers had been paid the re-enlistment bonuses, but she was unsure how many or whether the money would have to be repaid.  Murray’s office said that as far as it knew, no active Guard or Reserve members had received the bonuses.

A Murray spokeswoman, Alex Glass, said Krenke’s explanation was unacceptable.

“They can spin it anyway they want,” Glass said.  “But this is a promise they are trying to explain away.”

The bonus offer was part of the Pentagon’s effort to retain Guard and Reserve members at a time of declining enlistments in the regular Army.

Army officials have said they face the toughest recruiting climate since 1973, when the draft was dropped and replaced with an all-volunteer military.

Roughly 3,400 members of the Washington National Guard’s 81st Armor Brigade were serving in Iraq at the time the bonuses were offered.

The bonuses were tax-free because they involved soldiers stationed overseas.

“As in the private sector, bonuses are quite effective in keeping talented people with high demand skills,” Krenke said in an e-mail response to questions.

Murray, a leading Capitol Hill critic of management of the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs, said she didn’t know why the bonuses were dropped but suspected it was connected to the tight federal budget.

And further down,

In a two-paragraph reply to Murray, Donna Warren, the National Guard Bureau’s congressional liaison, said the bonus program had been scrubbed by order of the Office of Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs.  Warren said it had been discovered that Defense Department regulations prohibited such bonuses, but she offered no elaboration.

Well, perhaps they should have looked into that in a bit more detail before they offered them?  Reneging on the deal later citing administrative technicalities is shabby, at best.

 

I note that historically, it has been a very bad idea to hire mercenaries (which, remember, basically means "people paid to fight for you") and then refuse to pay them.  Historically, in fact, the usual thing that happens is they turn on you and sack you to get their pay.