Can someone confirm?

[justabob]

I have the TV on in the other room so only caught the tail end of a comment on CNN... Did I hear that a small group (2000 maybe) of soldiers (I think they said Air Force) were being sent home from Iraq to assist? I believe they are soldiers from the affected states on the Gulf Coast.

[Kenroy]

1. It's 300

and it's to help their own families.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_katrina

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - The U.S. Air Force will send 300 airmen home from Iraq and Afghanistan to help their families cope with emergencies on an air base devastated by Hurricane Katrina in Biloxi, Miss., a spokesman said Saturday.


The airmen, all based at Keesler Air Force Base, will begin flying home over the next two weeks, said Air Force Capt. David Small, spokesman for U.S. Central Command Air Forces in Qatar.

The group includes airmen who were scheduled to rotate home in September and others whose deployments will be cut short.

[HereSince1628]

9. These are compassionate leaves, not reassignments.

Soldiers with family crises can always request these. They will be reviewed individually.

I got a 30 day leavefrom Vietnam when my infant daughter died, it's just like other leave in that it is charged against your accumulated leave time. In my case I didn't have that much leave accrued and I still owed them days when I was discharged...they subtracted the days from my last month's pay.

[rfranklin]

2. If so, it is for PR purposes only...

to create something to spin against the realiztion that deployment to Iraq has left us unable to cope with natural disasters.

[justabob]

6. Thanks for clarifying the number

No doubt it is purely PR... disgusting. But I am glad a few soldiers will be leaving the theater... for whatever reason.

[Alamom]

3. I read something like that this morning

I don't have the link.

[SofaKingLiberal]

4. .

[Lindsay]

5. I heard that on KDKA radio out of Pittsburgh

a couple hours ago, but I haven't seen anything on the net about it. I thought they said 3,000, but I wouldn't stake my reputation on it.

[silverlib]

7. I heard this on Wednesday

from a San Marcos National Guadsman that was deployed to LA with Bush's Thursday group from Texas.

Another interesting note. Because they don't have enough vehicles to deploy, they called Greyhound, who didn't have any available busses. They are taking the vehicles they have and making several stops at other bases to pick up other vehicles.

[Emit]

8. YES! I just talked to my Aunt who is in Hammond

Just north of NO. She has a grandson-in-law National Guarder in Afghanistan who is being deployed back to NO for 6 months. The Guard has just landed there. She said he said they have mislead us to believe the NG was available in the first place-- that they weren't there in NO because they were mostly all over in the ME. They were landing as we spoke.

edited to add mostly--