This story was brought to my attention by a good buddy of mine. So thanks, if you are reading this. I hope this doesn’t screw up the leave stuff for the guys over there. We’ll see how it goes. -Head Jundi
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Apr 24, 2008
Airline bankruptcy leaves Vt. soldiers stuck in Iraq
By Peter Hirschfeld Vermont Press Bureau
PLAINFIELD — Waneta Mayhew has waited 12 long months for her son to come home from Iraq. She found out Tuesday she’ll have to wait a little longer.
Mayhew’s son is one of at least two Vermont soldiers stranded in Baghdad due to a transportation snafu that has delayed the return of hundreds of American service members.
ATA Airlines, the private company contracted by the Department of Defense to ferry service members from Iraq to the United States, went bankrupt earlier this month, leaving soldiers in the lurch after their tours expired.
“I’m pissed,” Mayhew said from her Plainfield home Wednesday. “He’s done his year. Bring him home.”
Mayhew’s son, Spc. Clinton Holt, was deployed to Iraq last May. He was the subject of statewide media interest last month when Congressman Peter Welch credited him as the driving force behind a new Vermont law that sets aside five moose hunting permits for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mayhew, who lost two brothers in the Korean War, said she has worried long enough.
“I know it’s only a couple weeks. But tragic things happens in the last few days of a tour,” Mayhew said. “Don’t we have some army planes? Why do we have to depend on commercial airlines to get our men to and from Iraq?”
Welch said the bankruptcy, and its accompanying logistical setbacks, spotlights the pitfalls of over-reliance on contractors for defense operations. He and Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernard Sanders sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Tuesday seeking a prompt resolution to the airline debacle.
“Obviously it’s a great source of anxiety for the families and we’re trying to solve it,” Welch said via telephone Wednesday afternoon. “I think what we’re seeing is how overstretched our services have become, and how reliant we are on contractors where the military simply doesn’t have as much control.”
Welch said he spoke with Mayhew on Tuesday, and subsequently exchanged e-mail correspondence with her son, a Vermont National Guardsman. Mayhew said her son was mortified to learn of her involvement in the issue.
“He said ‘Calm down Ma. Calm down Ma,’” Mayhew said. “But we’ve got to stand our ground. I’m sure I’m not the only mother who’s upset over this.”
Lt. Col. Fred Rice is a spokesman for U.S. Transportation Command. He said the military is working quickly to fix the problem but that the logjam of returning soldiers will likely cause delays weeks down the road.
“… These delays may last for a period of weeks as the system rights itself,” Rice said Wednesday. “What we are experiencing is definitely an inconvenience for our soldiers, and of course we feel that it is a main priority for us to get those soldiers home.”
Mayhew said her son, a Plainfield father of three, was looking forward to getting home just in time for an annual fishing trip with buddies back in Vermont. He was due back in Plainfield on May 9. Now, according to Mayhew, he won’t be home until June.
“He’s got six cousins from Arkansas coming up for the trip just to welcome him home,” Mayhew said. “And now he’s got to cancel out on it.”
And Holt’s mother won’t be appeased until her boy is home.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080424/NEWS04/804240406/0/FRONTPAGE
