Free Republic

Senior aides to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld thwarted Gulf War veteran Rep. Steve Buyer’s (R-Ind.) chance to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom, The Hill has learned. The intervention from the upper echelons of the Pentagon ended a saga in which confusion reigned over whether Buyer had actually been mobilized — or was even, as a congressman, allowed to go on active service — and ended with Army Secretary Thomas White’s rescinding a mobilization order that never existed.It all began on a Thursday in mid-March when an official in the office of the chief of the Army Reserve informed Buyer,...