Would you pay $200 per month for internet service?
If I was serving my country in Afghanistan and wanted to stay in touch with my family and friends, I would. I remember the photos from early in the war of soldiers sitting in a room of computers e-mailing and blogging to their families and friends from government supplied computers.
My congressman Jared Polis blogged yesterday about his trip to the war zone and it got me reading soldier blogs and I was outraged by this when I read it and thought some light needed to be shined on this policy.
More....
Soldier blogger Bill and Bob's Excellent Afghan Adventure
Bill and Bob's Excellent Afghan Adventure
reports that:
Something ugly is going on in Afghanistan. I don't know who the perpetrator is, but that's up to your Congressman to find out. Here's what I can tell you; at FOB Gardez and Camp Phoenix (and I'm checking to see if this has happened elsewhere as well) there used to be MWR internet facilities, complete with computers for the Soldiers to use. "Permanent" residents of the FOB could buy monthly internet access for a fee from a private provider, usually a bunch of Indians with a satellite dish. The fee varied, and while it was high, it just got higher.
It just got insane.
Now our Soldiers and Marines can buy internet by the hour, costing as much as $200 per month for pathetic speed.
My perspective is that I am against the war and wish we would bring our soldiers home today, but reality says that they will be in Afghanistan for years to come. It would appear that the military has ceased providing internet access to soldiers serving in a war zone forcing them to rely on outside contractors with high prices.
There several arguments that I can think of that $200 per month for service is wrong.
Soldiers happiness and morale is dependant on communicating with their families and with $500 Billion in defense spending there is not money to provide our service people free internet service? This takes money from the soldiers that could be used to support their children or pay their bills.
I cannot explain to you how much higher morale is when you can log on and get your email. I cannot explain to you how much more sustainable life is when you can log on the internet and see your child on the screen. Everyone wants to talk about the stress of deployment, but here is a morale killer and someone needs to look into it.
We in the Kos community recognize the utility of online communications and I would ask those of you that who as outraged as me to respond as I did and write my congressman as the blogger asks:
Please get your Congressman interested in this. It's things like this that don't get solved when people are living by the "what happens in Afghanistan, stays in Afghanistan" moral code unless a Congressman starts asking what the hell they are thinking of.
Please take a minute to share this problem with your member of Congress
House
Senate
We are a community of activists and this only takes a few minutes.