Your Republican Leadership.

I might be even more incensed today than yesterday. It is bad enough that soldiers are threatened with losing death benefits if they purchase their own body armor (let's forget for a moment that there's STILL a shortage of body armor), but even worse...

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The last time 1st Lt. William “Eddie” Rebrook IV saw his body armor, he was lying on a stretcher in Iraq, his arm shattered and covered in blood.

A field medic tied a tourniquet around Rebrook’s right arm to stanch the bleeding from shrapnel wounds. Soldiers yanked off his blood-soaked body armor. He never saw it again.

But last week, Rebrook was forced to pay $700 for that body armor, blown up by a roadside bomb more than a year ago.

He was leaving the Army for good because of his injuries. He turned in his gear at his base in Fort Hood, Texas. He was informed there was no record that the body armor had been stripped from him in battle.

He was told to pay nearly $700 or face not being discharged for weeks, perhaps months.

Rebrook, 25, scrounged up the cash from his Army buddies and returned home to Charleston last Friday.

Read the full story. If that link doesn't work, go to http://www.wvgazette.com and search for "rebrook".

If the notion of an unemployed ex-soldier, permanently disabled in the line of duty, and being forced to pay for his own body armor is repugnant to you, consider donating. The wife and I are foregoing a $50 dinner and a movie night.

This is your Republican-run military. This is how your sons and daughters are treated for putting their lives on the line.