[fight_truth_decay]

The New York Times did a story on Nicole Goodwin as well:

Home From Iraq, and Without a Home
By DAN BARRY Published: April 24, 2004
"THIS is how Nicole Goodwin travels these days:
with her 1-year-old daughter pressed to her chest in a Snugli,
a heavy backpack strapped across her shoulders ..."

Ting-Li Wang/The New York Times Nicole Goodwin,
a homeless Army veteran who served in Iraq,
and her 1-year-old daughter, Shylah.

The Times writes:
CUT
..."She pushed her stroller a few blocks to the Emergency Assistance Unit, the city's flawed point of entry for homeless families. She explained her situation to a staff member who, she says, yelled at her for not having the proper paperwork handy. "I killed her with kindness," she said. "I've been yelled at before by the best."I got that attitude from Iraq," Ms. Goodwin added. "If this isn't life and death, it's not that serious."

(Bio: Goodwin, 23, graduated early from Morris High School in the Bronx. January 2001, she entered an Army recruiting station.. basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C.; classes in supply support at Fort Lee, Va.; and then a flight to Germany, where she was attached to Company B of the 501st Forward Support Battalion at a post in Friedberg. A relationship with another soldier ended after she became pregnant, and in early 2003 she flew to the California home of some friends from the military - the Bronx was not an option, she says - to give birth in March of that year. A few weeks later, she did the hardest thing she has ever had to do: she left Shylah with her California friends and returned to Germany to complete her service. Four months after giving birth, Ms. Goodwin was sent to Iraq. She served food rations at Baghdad International Airport for several weeks, then spent a few more weeks at the sports arena known as the Olympic Stadium, helping to supply soldiers with things like toilet paper and small armaments. After nearly four months in Iraq, Ms. Goodwin returned to Germany to finish the tail end of her three-year hitch. "I wanted to get back to my daughter," she said, "but I didn't want to leave Iraq.")

[Khurkris]

Old military expression - "Garbage in - Garbage out." Just another anti-military, woe is me me, GWB is bad BS piece. This person has a support group. She choses to get her 15 minutes. My only sympathy is with the child.

[onedoug]

Force schizophrenics into tax supported treatment programs, whose redemptive value will issue when it's patients go back to work and repay those taxes.

Then there will be no doubt that the rest of the so-called homeless are bums.

[NativeNewYorker]

CBS Evening News anchor Mika Brzezinski

...is the daughter of Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, Zbig.

No agenda or pattern in hiring, no sir.

[cake_crumb]

Replace every instance of the word "Iraq" with "Vietnam" and you have the same hype that gave all Vietnam veterans the reputation for being unstable, drug addicted, drunken, muttering homeless people. Why am I not surprised, considering who's running for president and that CBS has been campaigning openly for a Democrat president from the beginning?

[verity]

At least this deflects the emphasis on homeless Civil War Vets. :~(

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

"The homeless is increasing faster than right-wingers to a KKK rally."

[SZonian]

"The military does have a program for all soldiers leaving the service, telling them what help is available, from jobs to housing. But it is voluntary and soldiers like Goodwin, who are not aware of their options, still fall through the cracks."

This whole story stinks of BS. Having just retired from the military, I can tell you with out a shred of doubt that the Transition Assistance Program (name of federally mandated program) is MANDATORY not voluntary! By Federal Law, every separating/retiring member of the military must attend no later than 90 days prior to separation/retirement. There are numerous agencies and departments both federal and state that attend to inform folks of their opportunities and options. Even then it's not too late to change one's mind and stay in the military.

Also, she is homeless by choice. The military would have provided quarters for her and her child if she had so chosen. There are countless hundreds if not thousands of single parents in the military, male and female, and John Q Public picks up the dime for that as well.

If she had only gone down to the military clinic or hospital on base she could have been put on all the free birth control she needed to avoid now being a drain on society because of her premarital sex resulting in an out of wedlock child.

I agree with another post here about the child being the victim here, not the mother!

I am so sick and tired of people misrepresenting the military and claiming these misrepresentations as fact because the average civilian has no clue as to what lengths the military will go to provide for their members!

Rant off!

Cheers!