My sister's fiance is being reactivated.

[xiphias]

He's 42. But he was in the Special Forces, so he has useful skills, and is therefore being called up.

I was just talking to Sibling, and we were commenting that, in all honesty, his brain is far more useful right now than his ability to be shot at, so we're really, really hoping that he's stationed, ideally, stateside as command-and-control, codebreaking, or training, or at least nowhere near the front lines. We thought about how we could get this message to someone, and I pointed out that at least ONE of us has to have our phones tapped.

"Yeah!" she said, "and I'm on a cell phone anyway, so they're definitely listening: his name is XXX XXX XXX, and he's stationed out of XXX XXX XXX, and he's really going to be more useful in a training or control role, so that's what you should do -- it would be a waste to put him on the front lines. Plus, he's got many years of experience as a police officer, so he can help set up that sort of thing, too. See? This is the good part of illegal wiretapping!"

He's 42, engaged to my sister, and has a teenage daughter. He's got a number of years in various police departments, and a postgraduate degree in theology. If they ask him to carry a gun and be shot at, he'll go and do that, and won't even complain about it any more than average, but I hope, for his sake, for my sister's sake, and for the country's sake, that they have a better idea in mind.

Comments

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

That's sort of assuming that they will place people intelligently.

We have a friend who has been in Iraq for over a year. Worked for a Think Tank here in the USA doing strategy stuff for the government in regards to diplomacy stuff, and in his 40s as well. Really a brains kind of guy... and an officer.

Unfortunately, his experience for the govt was in military intelligence. So, he's in the field, collecting data, dealing with the locals, and pretty much a guy with a translator, a computer and a sidearm and not much else, as are the people in his command, setting up attempts to network with the local police, sub-contractors, politicians etc.

He left his teenagers in guardianship of a couple of friends while he's been gone, and one of them took his own life a few months ago. They wouldn't give him leave or send him back to deal with it... another friend had to step in and take over the day to day household ops with his kids.

The military is being about as intelligent and sympathetic as rocks these days.

[ckd]

But that's clearly not possible, because the Republicans are all about family values, "children need a mom and a dad", etc etc! So how can anything they do harm a family? Sigh.

(Which is a bigger threat to marriage? Statistics say deployment divorces are common, while here in Gay Marriageland the divorce rate is... er... lower than Texas's.)

[theletterelle.livejournal.com]

One of the friends took his own life? Or one of the kids?

Either way, it's dreadful, but if they wouldn't even send him back if his own kid committed suicide... Jesus.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

One of the two friends who were acting as guardians to his kids while he's de[ployed. Basically one was taking care of the day to day household needs, the other was handling the bills/accounting etc. The day to day household operations guardian who was taking care of things is the one who killed himself.

I've heard other horror stories from friends, of two parent families with both parents deployed over seas in different units and either having to leave an older child more or less in charge of things with very elderly grandparents left in guardianship on paper.

The concept of hardship exceptions are pretty much non-existant. They've even dragged doctors who had been retired from practice for a decade back into service in some cases.