Posted on 05/16/2008 5:22:48 AM PDT by radar101
Once again, the U.S. Army shot itself in the foot by doing the right thing, then screwing it up.
In this case, a soldier, one of three brothers, was released early from his enlistment because of the 60 year old "sole survivor" rule. This regulation allows for the sole survivor of a group of siblings to be released from service. In this case Specialist Jason Hubbard had two other brothers killed (one by a roadside bomb, the other in a helicopter crash), and he decided to take advantage of the sole survivor rule.
But another rule, introduced after the sole survivor rule, prohibited soldiers who got out before their enlistment was up, from receiving veterans health and education benefits.
Last year, the army was embarrassed to find they were doing the same thing to troops who were discharged early because of severe wounds that prevented further service. No one bothered to check if any other conditions would trigger such an unpleasant situation.
Congress is now changing the rules to preserve the benefits of wounded and sole survivor troops who get out before their enlistment contract has been completed. The new law will be retroactive to September 11, 2001.
The movie "Saving Private Ryan" was all about getting a sole surviving son out of the combat zone. But during the subsequent 64 years, a new set of laws were passed to cover military service and benefits, creating a situation where private Ryan might think twice about getting saved.
Tinseltown’s GIs snub a real-life Private Ryan
By Susan Crabtree
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/tinseltowns-gis-snub-a-real-life-private-ryan-2008-05-06.html
Posted: 05/06/08 07:54 PM [ET]
The stars of “Saving Private Ryan” have declined to support legislation that parallels their hit film.
Hollywood’s top GIs have spurned Rep. Devin Nunes’s (R-Calif.) effort to help real soldiers who had their benefits cut off after losing family members in Iraq and Afghanistan. These soldiers returned home under the “sole-survivor” policy, which was a storyline in the 1998 Oscar-winning film.
In the movie, a troop of soldiers led by Tom Hanks’s character risks their lives to save the titular Private Ryan (Matt Damon), whose three brothers have all been killed in World War II.
Nunes had a similar situation in his central California district. Former Army Spc. Jason Hubbard lost two brothers, Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Hubbard and Army Cpl. Nathan Hubbard, in Iraq. As the last of the three brothers, Jason Hubbard opted to leave Iraq and the military under the sole-survivor policy, which allows anyone to exit military service with an honorable discharge when he or she loses one or more immediate family members.
Once Hubbard was back home, however, he ran up against a bureaucratic brick wall. The military cut him off, refusing to provide the customary support for a veteran transitioning to civilian life. The Army denied him any benefits under the GI bill, refused to provide the customary transitional healthcare and ordered him to repay a significant portion of his enlistment bonus. Congress has never passed legislation detailing the rights of sole survivors, so Hubbard was at the mercy of Defense Department bureaucrats.
Nunes’s Hubbard Act will provide continued benefits for any member of the armed forces who decides to leave the military after losing a family member. Specifically, it guarantees unemployment compensation, as well as payment for transitional healthcare and commissary and exchange benefits, as well as veterans’ benefits. These benefits would apply even if the soldier had not completed the years of service as agreed upon at enlistment.
In addition, these soldiers would not be forced to repay any portion of their enlistment bonus and may participate in the GI bill’s education benefits.
Since Nunes introduced the proposal in mid-April, Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) has signed on as an original co-sponsor and the bill has quickly attracted 295 co-sponsors on both sides of the aisle. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) introduced companion legislation and attached substantial portions of it to the Defense Authorization bill. Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), the ranking member, want to see the bill enacted by Memorial Day. Nunes is hearing that Democratic leaders may schedule a floor vote as early as next week.
So far, however, the stars of “Saving Private Ryan,” including Hanks, Damon, director Steven Spielberg and Robert Rodat, the writer, have brushed aside attempts to enlist their support.
An e-mail reply from Hanks’s agent, Meghan Hurlbut, to a Nunes staffer said the mega-star had “politely declined” the request for a signature on a letter of support.
“He sends his regrets and wishes you all the best, but simply cannot become involved in something of this matter at the present time,” Hurlbut wrote. “His schedule and workload just doesn’t permit it, and he will not commit himself to anything that he is not prepared to be fully involved with. Thanks so much for understanding.”
Spielberg had a similar response, conveyed to Nunes’s office through Robert Rozen, a lobbyist for the Directors Guild of America.
“We finally heard back and Spielberg declined to associate himself with this,” Rozen wrote in an e-mail. “I think it was a case of not wanting to focus on this as much as anything; he evidently just finished filming his latest ‘Indiana Jones’ movie and is in the middle of another production and probably just did not have the time to focus; sorry, it sounds like a good project.”
Damon’s agent, Jennifer Allen, said Damon was in Europe shooting a movie but would get back to Nunes’s aides. He never did, they said, while Rodat’s office did not respond at all.
Nunes is deeply disappointed that the celebrities who made the film and benefited from it financially are too busy to sign a letter to help real-world soldiers who have lost siblings in Iraq or Afghanistan.
“Hollywood made millions on this film, and we thought they’d want to give back,” Nunes said. “We have a real-life Private Ryan who could use their help … it has been rather frustrating on our end that they’re not interested.”
Nunes spokesman Andrew House went further and took a swipe at the lucrative entertainment industry’s values.
“We are realists and, in any event, Hollywood is about entertainment; more than $4 billion worth of entertainment last summer.” House wrote in an e-mail. “They must be busy. That’s more money in one summer than what, [the gross domestic product of] half of the members of the United Nations?”
Hollywood’s top lobbyist, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) President Dan Glickman, may still ride in to save the day. Nunes said Glickman pledged to reach out to the Hollywood community for support after the two met Tuesday to discuss it.
An MPAA spokeswoman confirmed that Glickman had agreed to help enlist Hollywood’s help.
“We just found out about the bill several hours ago and it sounds like a worthy cause,” said the spokeswoman, Angela Martinez. “Dan has certainly said he will try to be helpful as much as possible to reach out to folks with [whom] we have contacts.”
Nunes said he didn’t know whether Spielberg, Hanks and Damon, all well-known donors to Democratic candidates and causes, were reluctant to respond to a Republican lawmaker or to a cause dealing directly with the Iraq war, considering that films on the topic have been box-office disappointments.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), whose Los Angeles district is home to Spielberg’s DreamWorks, as well as Disney, Warner Bros. and ABC, said he wouldn’t take the brush-off personally.
“Mega-stars like that are dealing with an avalanche of requests,” he said. “They have to be very selective about what to get involved in.”
Schiff argued that responding to Nunes’s request would involve more than signing a piece of paper. More than likely, Hanks, Spielberg and Damon would want to research the issue personally to make sure it didn’t “come back to bite them in some way.”
Rep. David Dreier’s (R-Calif.) district is just east of Los Angeles and he has worked with Hollywood on several of its top legislative priorities.
Dreier said he has never tried to enlist celebrities to back one of his efforts, so he doesn’t know how difficult it would be to convince them. Still, Dreier recalled, the late Charlton Heston never hesitated to get involved when he felt passionately about a political issue, whether it be civil rights or gun rights. Heston marched with Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, and more recently served as president of the National Rifle Association.
“[Heston] understood the difference between the theater and the theater of real life,” Dreier said. “If they wanted to make a commitment to the Private Ryan’s story, here is a real-life issue to get involved in.”
Sometimes it looks as though all the mental patients that were turned out of the hospitals years ago found jobs high up in Washington, especially in Congress and the Senate.
You know, we criticize Hollywood celebrities when they involve themselves in politics, and now we criticize them when they don’t.
Nah. The mental patients are the people who re-elect them again, and again, and again, and again...
The Army was just teasing him, he will have to find a screw on his own.
My sympathies to his family for their great loss.
And we want them involved for what reason?
Even in a good cause (which I agree it is) this is just as unconstitutional as Clinton's retroactive tax increase.
>>Sometimes it looks as though all the mental patients that were turned out of the hospitals years ago found jobs high up in Washington, especially in Congress and the Senate.
I think it’s simpler than that - they are unable (or unwilling) to see the consequences of their actions. Remember that the next time you think a new law will solve something.
How so? Ex post facto laws are laws which make illegal acts which were legal at the time they were performed. These don’t meet that definition.
"The family's first son, Jared Hubbard, who was killed in Iraq in 2004."
“Even in a good cause (which I agree it is) this is just as unconstitutional as Clinton’s retroactive tax increase.’
how is it unconstitutional? It doesn’t involve criminal charges.
Nathan Hubbard: The second of the brothers to die in Iraq... (2007)
I thought "Saving Private Ryan" was released in 1998. It's fiction people. It never happened.
“The Niland Brothers were a group of four American brothers from Tonawanda, New York serving in the military during World War II.
Of the four, two survived the war, but for a time it was believed that only one, Frederick Niland, had survived.
Frederick was sent back to the United States to complete his service, and only later learned that his brother Edward, presumed dead, was actually captive in a Japanese POW camp in Burma.
Steven Spielberg’s film Saving Private Ryan is loosely based on the brothers’ story.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niland_brothers
And I respect the family and honor their sacrifice. But why do we need Hollywood celebrities involved in this?
The bill has 295 co-sponsors. I doubt it needs any help in getting passed. Why involve the Reds from Hollywood?
"The Hubbard family, parents, Jeff and Peggy, at left, and son, Jason, right, with his wife Linnea, on his arm, stand outside a funeral home in Clovis, Calif., after Nathan's casket arrived."
"A third brother, Jason Hubbard, was riding in another helicopter nearby and told his wife he had to search the wreckage, according to the family's pastor."
"Members of the U.S. Army Honor Guard carry the flag -draped casket of U.S. Army Cpl. Nathan Hubbard, to a funeral home in Clovis, Calif. Hundreds of people lined the streets Wednesday to watch the procession of Hubbard, the second son in his family killed in the Iraq war."
FWIW, I liked the movie and think Hanks and Spielberg went to great lengths to achieve verisimilitude and pay tribute to our veterans...but nevertheless, it was, remains and always will be fiction.
And all that will be made better by a Tom Hanks signature?
Spielberg had a similar response, conveyed to Nunes’s office through Robert Rozen, a lobbyist for the Directors Guild of America.
“We finally heard back and Spielberg declined to associate himself with this,” Rozen wrote in an e-mail. “I think it was a case of not wanting to focus on this as much as anything; he evidently just finished filming his latest ‘Indiana Jones’ movie and is in the middle of another production and probably just did not have the time to focus; sorry, it sounds like a good project.”
Damon’s agent, Jennifer Allen, said Damon was in Europe shooting a movie but would get back to Nunes’s aides. He never did, they said, while Rodat’s office did not respond at all. "
In other words, these guys are all a bunch of hifalutin hollywood d***s and you military types are just on your own...
This isn't so much a good cause, as it is fixing something that should never have been. When the two laws butted heads, the better (Sole Survivor) should have prevailed, but it didn't. This is the formal, retro-active fix.
No one is going to be jailed or fined over this, it simply clarifies what should have been clear all along. I don't really think this qualifies as ex-post-facto in the same sense as someone now being punished for something they did that was legal when they did it, but made illegal after they did it.
I'd like to give Hanks the benefit of the doubt...It could simply be that their respective agents never even let them know what was going on. Spielberg and Damon can pound sand, regardless.
I would like to see the new Indiana Jones movie, but Speilberg and Ford sure have put me off lately.
When it comes to our representatives, can anyone of them be as dumb as all of them?
How do they expect to get volunteers if they keep doing things like that?
“I thought “Saving Private Ryan” was released in 1998. It’s fiction people. It never happened.”
You’re right, but I always understood that the story of the film was inspired by the Sullivan brothers from WW2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullivan_brothers
See #16, and my reply at #21.
Good statement. You are right.
“The mental patients are the people who re-elect them again, and again, and again, and again...”
But how do we know we elect them? How do we know the people in control even counted the votes?
Once they get the computers in place, we’ll never know.
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