8 Feb 04
Canceled R&R
This is in reference to the article “Army denies R&R canceled during rotation” (Jan. 23). Great article. Unfortunately, it was wrong. Coalition Joint Task Force-7 has indeed canceled Operation Iraqi Freedom’s Rest and Recuperation leave for February and March. I’m sure Stars and Stripes will receive letters pointing out that, technically, the R&R leave program has only been “temporarily suspended.” Semantics aside, it’s been canceled for my 125 troops.
The article quoted Gary Jones, a spokesman for Army Forces Central Command in Atlanta, as saying, “It’ll be severely cut back, but only because there will be fewer troops eligible. We’ve got a lot of folks there. … But if three soldiers are there and eligible, those three will be flown out on R&R.” Well, in my company I have 125 troops who are eligible for leave, and February and March are our last two months of eligibility. So should I be contacting Jones to get those leave slots, or will he be contacting me?
My troops have done everything that the Army and I have asked of them. They’ve put up with shortages. We’ve been in country for eight months and we still don’t have our third and fourth sets of desert camouflage uniforms. They’ve put up with the fact that they were on stop loss while their active-duty counterparts were allowed to ETS and PCS. They’ve seen units around them achieve 100 percent participation in the R&R leave program, and all really without too much complaint. But now they’re being told that the much-sensationalized R&R leave program has, for them, been canceled.
By the time our unit redeploys, we’ll have been mobilized and away from our families for 16 months. Canceling leave for 125 of my troops may seem like a small thing to those who made the decision. But I can assure them that it isn’t, and 16 months from now it will continue to be no small matter to my troops, their families, and me.
Capt. Matthew R. Hook
Camp Victory, Kuwait
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=20345#pacific