24 Sept 01

This is from a friend who is a civilian employee of DOD. He is scheduled to deploy overseas with his military unit, as he is an integral part:

“I pointed out to my military superiors that civilians (like me) are not covered by SGLI (or any other kind of life insurance for that matter) in a war zone and asked if they would be able to get SGLI to cover us. I was curtly informed that would not be possible. I also indicated, in a war zone, I wanted to carry a gun. That request was greeted with incredulous looks and comments like, ‘You’re a noncombatant. You can’t carry a weapon.’ I pointed out to them that Mr bin Ladin and his ilk consider no one to be a noncombatant, and that they underlined that philosophy in NYC earlier this month!

I then made it clear that, of the insurance and personal protection situations were not solved to my satisfaction, I wouldn’t be going. I’m not about to be unarmed and unprotected in a war zone. I was looking for a job when I got here. They went into a dither. I’m holding firm.

Too bad it takes a ‘civilian’ to lead the good fight!”

Lesson: One would have thought all this would have all been worked out long ago. Things haven’t changed much since 1950!

/John