| You might remember how 160 soldiers in NJ's Nat'l Guard got their tours extended as part of last year's surge, and that with the training in the South that preceded their deployment to Iraq, they ended up away from home for two solid years.
It's heartbreaking to read today in the Rutgers Observer that at least 91 Rutgers-Newark students in the NJ Guard will be mobilized, many to leave for Iraq in June, when half our guard goes. Because of the new limit on deployments to just one year (which somehow probably ends up being 18 months):
...many of the students that will be called in for duty will have to participate in at least three weeks of intensive training. Because of this they may have to leave sometime in late March or early April.
The irony is that many of these students sign up with the Guard for the tuition money, and they will be forced to withdraw for the Spring semester, delaying by an additional semester (plus their year in Iraq) their chance to complete their education.
Not to mention, there's no telling how many times these students have already been deployed. Are they on their second? third? |
