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Keene Sentinel Channels Laura; Goes Overboard

by: elwood

Fri Jun 15, 2007 at 19:06:17 PM EDT
Laura has been keeping track of Congressman Hodes' work on behalf of individual soldiers. So have others.

This evening's Keene Sentinel has an editorial describing three cases where the Congressman has helped the soldiers, or the families. Excerpts below the fold.
elwood :: Keene Sentinel Channels Laura; Goes Overboard

First came the case of Hero the dog, the puppy that was adopted by Army Specialist Justin Rollins of Newport just a day before Rollins died in Iraq...

Then along came Specialist Frank Chapman, formerly of Hanover, who was denied leave from the Army so he could donate a kidney to his ailing mother, for whom he is a match... Hodes was soon working on a solution, acting as the Chapman family's advocate and liaison to the Army... The surgery was performed Wednesday. All is well.

In the meantime, Hodes has been heavily involved in the matter of Specialist Lisa Hayes, the woman from Rindge who overstayed her emergency leave from the New Hampshire National Guard during her second tour of duty in Iraq. The leave had been granted in February so she could deal with what she feared was possible domestic violence involving her 7-year-old child.

Hayes was unable to quickly resolve that matter, and in March the Army declared her absent without leave. When he was contacted, Hodes called an Army chief of staff, who he said turned out to be sympathetic to Hayes's plight...the Army dropped the AWOL classification, found housing for her and her child, helped her refile her application for a continuing hardship discharge, and finally gave her an honorable discharge.

It may be too soon to nominate this guy for sainthood, but if the United States ever follows the leads of Canada, the Philippines, Australia and several other countries and sets up an independent military ombudsman to look out for the interests of its soldiers, we could think of a good candidate.

Sainthood? That's going a little too far. This is a representative who is listening to and working hard for the people he represents. It may be such a shock to the system in New Hampshire that the Sentinel went a little overboard.

A tip of the hat to the people in the military who helped resolve these three situations.

And a tip of the hat to Representative Hodes' staff. A lot of the grunt work on budging bureaucracies presumably comes from them.
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Keene Sentinel Channels Laura; Goes Overboard | 12 comments
Blogger ethics: full disclosure (0.00 / 0)
The author worked for the Keene Sentinel, delivering newspapers each day, several decades ago, in Junior High.
haha (0.00 / 0)
how's your aim ?

Next time, there may be no next time.
We didn't throw them (0.00 / 0)
I wonder how that works.

We got -- and they still get, we put the money out each week -- paid by the subscriber directly. I think we were independent contractors; my Social Security history doesn't reach back to paperboy.

So, throw the paper onto the lawn where the dog or sprinkler gets it? Maybe in the cartoons, but even I knew better. It's a bit of a tip business.

[ Parent ]
I'm a little surprised, happily (0.00 / 0)
Mr. Hodes is a trial lawyer. I've heard him speak in public (about NHPR, then WEVO, programming, of all things) and know he can be both fiery and convincing.

We need firebrands, but usually they're not too good at the quiet negotiation and relationship-building that we also need.

Twofer.

Does your title intentionally imply (4.00 / 2)
that I go overboard?  ;-P
If there was a comma instead of a semi-colon.. (0.00 / 0)
would it no longer imply that?

It's time we steer by the stars, and not the lights of every passing ship
[ Parent ]
I think the telling punctuation mark (0.00 / 0)
would be the colon.

Keene Sentinel Channels Laura: Goes Overboard has no nice interpretations.

[ Parent ]
Well, I wanted to suggest (0.00 / 0)
that going overboard is something to watch out for, when channeling you. Not that you do, but amateurs might not be as good.
[ Parent ]
Pull Up The Gangplank (0.00 / 0)
Captain, I'm onboard.

Next time, there may be no next time.
[ Parent ]
The editorial made small nods (4.00 / 3)
To Gregg and Sununu on those issues. But oh, how small.

As I said to Laura the other night, I always knew he would make a good Congressman -- a really good one.

But watching him on C-Span last week in th FDA hearings, it just really hit me that Hodes is the undeniable star of the freshman class. We've barely seen the start of this guy. We're going to see much more of him.

Now, I'm not ready to start a DRAFT HODES movement YET...but I wouldn't be exactly opposed...


What they left out by the way (4.00 / 5)
At the end of the article they say:

...if the United States ever follows the leads of Canada, the Philippines, Australia and several other countries and sets up an independent military ombudsman to look out for the interests of its soldiers, we could think of a good candidate

An ombudsman is a good idea, long overdue in fact. And there *is* a bill in front of Congress already, to create such a position:

http://thomas.loc.go...

It's author?

Paul Hodes.


All in favor (0.00 / 0)
signify by saying Aye
The Ayes have it.

Next time, there may be no next time.
[ Parent ]
Keene Sentinel Channels Laura; Goes Overboard | 12 comments

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