At a time when American field commanders in Iraq and
Afghanistan say they need every single soldier they can get hold of,
thousands of our battle-ready troops are being held back in the United
States. Why not deploy them? Because the Pentagon has hung this label on
them: security risk.
There’s nothing squirrelly in the makeup of
these folks. Their only crime is that they’ve fallen deeply into debt
here at home.
Like other Americans, military people can have an
illness, go through a divorce, or just get caught in a credit-card crunch
— and debt piles up. But our troops also are targeted by predatory
“payday lenders” — chains of quick-money outfits
clustered around military bases, luring soldiers to borrow against their
next paychecks at exorbitant interest rates.
Soldiers whose debt payments reach about a third of
their paycheck are designated risks by the military brass and their
security clearances are yanked, meaning that they’re barred from duty
abroad. The Pentagon’s rationale is that soldiers in debt might be
tempted to sell secrets or military equipment to the enemy. More than 6,300
members of the Air Force, Navy, and Marines lost their clearances in a
recent four-year period because of financial reasons. The true size of the
problem, however, is much larger, because the Army — which employs
the vast majority of our troops — refuses to release its numbers.
But why isn’t the Pentagon standing with the
troops? Instead of branding them for life as security risks, the top dogs
should work with these good soldiers to refinance their loan-shark debts
with long-term loans at a low — or even zero — interest rate.
Lenders should not be allowed to profit from the hardships of American
soldiers. Whatever happened to “Support our troops”?
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator,
columnist, and author.
This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2008.
