In response to the July 3 article, “Review: Changes needed in Guard, Reserve member pay”: The article is a bit misleading, as drill pay covers more than just two days of work. The pay covers myriad tasks and responsibilities members of the reserve component must perform outside drill weekends.

One must not only look at charts and graphs to compare pay; all the sacrifices reservists make must be included into the analysis.

Many of our soldiers are asked to drive between four and six hours (round trip) to their units. We ask them to complete online courses, prepare training events and conduct a variety of duties throughout the month. That burden is even heavier on leaders, as they spend countless hours of their free time preparing for drill, deployments, training, and addressing soldier and administrative issues.

I believe most soldiers would be happy to earn a day’s pay for a day’s work. Where should we send the bill for all the unaccounted days?

First Lt. Lindsay Pheneger

Camp Mike Spann, Afghanistan

Heinous case virtually ignored

After reading the latest on Col. James H. Johnson III to include reader comments (“Still a colonel: Johnson sentenced to reprimand, fine for fraud, adultery, bigamy,” June 15, front page), I totally agree and remind your readers that “different ranks have different spanks.”

Actually, I am even somewhat surprised that Stars and Stripes even chose to run the story, given how selective your editors are when it comes to making officers their reportable sacrificial lambs. Take another U.S. Military Academy graduate, Daniel Woolverton — a fast-tracking Army lawyer major who pleaded guilty in state court to forcible sodomy with an infant. Woolverton got 37 years in prison, which is being served concurrently with federal charges — where he also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 27 years — for a sexual assault on an infant boy that he also videotaped. Woolverton, married to another Army lawyer, also made and distributed child pornography from his basement. (I submit you Google him).

I find it interesting that this got little coverage in Stars and Stripes. I wonder: Did the Army lawyer hierarchy have anything to do with this total lack of exposure? Seems to me that maybe the “free flow of news and information” cited in the Stars and Stripes masthead has some limitations to it?

Jeffrey Ziegler

Rohrbach, Germany

Migrated