In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Makes you puke
Does anyone - congress - the president - the pentagon give a rats ass about our troops?
Basic Training Doesn't Guard Against Insurance Pitch to G.I.'s
Nicholas Stachler was 19 years old when he reported for basic training with the Army at Fort Benning, Ga., before shipping out for 11 months to Iraq.
...
About six weeks into his training - six weeks of combat drills and drummed-in lessons in Army ways - he tasted one of the less-honorable traditions of military life: a compulsory classroom briefing on personal finance that was a life insurance sales pitch in disguise.
As he remembers the class and as base investigative records show, two insurance agents quick-stepped him and his classmates through a stack of paperwork, pointing out where they should sign their names, where they should scribble their initials. They were given no time to read the documents and no copies to keep.
Specialist Stachler says he thought he had arranged to have $100 a month deducted from his pay for some sort of Army-endorsed savings plan or mutual fund. When he returned from Iraq, he found that he had not been saving the money at all. He had been paying $100 a month in premiums for an insurance policy that promised him some cash value far down the road and a death benefit that was almost certainly less than $44,000, a small amount compared with the $250,000 in life insurance he had through a military-sponsored plan that cost him $16.25 a month.
...
The Pentagon has been aware of practices like these since the Vietnam War; investigations have even cited specific companies and agents. But because of industry lobbying, Congressional pressure, weak enforcement and the Pentagon's ineffective oversight, almost no action has been taken to sanction those responsible or to better protect those who are vulnerable, The Times has found.
And the problem has only intensified since the beginning of the Iraq war, say military employees who monitor insurance agents. With the death toll rising in Iraq, interest in insurance among the troops has surged, making the war a selling opportunity for many agents, they said.
Hey Kerry! Show you're love for our soldiers! Shine a spotlight on this! Get this to stop!
$100 a month for basically nothing... what a reward for a young man risking his life. (and unfortunately risking his life on a misadventure based on lies from the commander in chief... these guys are getting screwed in multiple ways).
- rob 5:31 PM - [PermaLink] -
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