Army Puts Legally Blind Washington State Soldier On Roadside Bomb Removal Detail In Iraq

Yesterday, I reported on how military recruiters attempted to recruit an autistic 18 year old to help to fill their 7,000 military recruiting shortfall due to the Iraq War cutting into recruitment level goals. Now an even more outrageous story of a military manpower shortage due to the war was reported by KOIN News in Portland, Oregon, as a legally blind, Washington state, U.S. Army soldier was not only sent over to Iraq, but is now being placed on very hazardous roadside bomb removal detail by the military.

According to the family of this soldier, his 20/200 eyesight is so poor that he cannot tell the difference bestween a soldier or a tree, yet he is being assigned very hazardous duty to search for the very dangerous roadside bombs that can flip a U.S. tank over with the huge blast force. This not only puts the life of this soldier in extreme danger, but the lives of other soldiers as well.

It is deeply disturbing when soldiers with extreme physical disabilities are assigned very hazardous service duty because of a serious shortfall in military manpower. The U.S. was never prepared to fight two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that drag on for years with an all volunteer military. It is yet another sign that both Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration have no sense of judgement whatsoever on matters involving war planning or foreign policy. This week a letter from Iran could have been used to push Iran into some talks in a third country to eliminate their nuclear threat, instead the letter was ignored by the Bush Administration, and the U.S. and other countries were blocked in the U.N. by Russia and China in a forceful resolution against Iran. If diplomacy rather than shooting first is the first choice of the Bush Administration, then you'd never know it.

Whether it's war planning or foreign policy, the Bush Administration has proven themselves as perhaps the most inept administration in American history.