The Department of Defense is moving forces from Okinawa to Guam – all well and good. Except, the recently passed DOD Authorization contains funding for construction firms to pay their workers wages consistent with labor rates in Hawaii – 250% HIGHER than wages in Guam.

This will not only take over $10 billion (over 10 years) needed dollars out of the pockets of wounded service members, but will pad the pockets of Hawaii’s labor unions while hurting small businesses in Guam.

As we vote on funding for critical programs for our Nation’s Veterans and construction of our military instillations, it is important to ensure the timely and adequate delivery of these services.

This provision provides labor unions dollars, that in my opinion, are more crucial and can be better spent on military hospitals as they deliver first-class health care to our wounded soldiers.

Promoted by Caleb … Why aren’t Sheehan and the like called extremists for protesting but veterans are? GOOD QUESTION!

It’s really too bad that the media won’t cover this video from Midnight Blue.

But hey, it’s probably for the best with him being a “right-wing extremist” (translation-veteran) and all, right?

This diary is cross-posted on The Minority Report.

Today, Bud Day, Orson Swindle, and a bunch of other high-profile veterans sent a letter to New York election officials about the problems faced by active duty military in exercising their right to vote in the NY-20 special congressional election that is currently in recount. We have written about this issue before here at Redstate. The letter is pretty hard hitting:

Every effort should be made to ensure that every vote cast by members of the U.S. armed forces serving overseas is counted - in this election and in every election.  But in New York, only minimal steps were taken by state and Federal authorities to get the ballots overseas early enough to have a chance to make it back in time to be counted.  Votes cast by men and women serving in our armed forces overseas may not be counted because of this failure.  That is shameful, and an embarrassment to us as a nation.  We can and must do better.

The complete letter is after the jump.

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Let’s not forget what they were planning (even though they’ve backed off from it for now)

There are only 26 surviving members of the Alaska Territorial Guard, a unit composed of mostly Native militiamen which was established to guard the territory of Alaska from the threat of Japanese attack during World War II. The militia was deemed necessary because Japan had made incursions into the Aleutians and occupied some of the islands in 1942.

Now the Army, in its bureaucratic wisdom, has decided to cut off retirement pay for these patriots, most of them now in their eighties. They stand to lose as much as $557 in monthly retirement pay at the end of this month. Another 37 of the militiamen have had their applications for retirement pay suspended.

At Libertarian Republican, Eric says the Pentagon’s decision could be “a first sign that the incoming Obama administration may be planning retribution for the State of Alaska.”

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