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BLAME IT ON THE BAD EGGS

Military leadership is overly concerned with perception and expends a great amount of resources to combat problems not unique to the military. The fact is that the vast majority of service members do the right thing.

Those who don’t probably would be sexually assaulting, wife-beating and downloading child porn as civilians; their problems have nothing to do with the fact that they happen to be in the military at the time. Focusing on such a small population does nothing except to demoralize everyone else. You will not stop these [people] from doing what they are going to do.

No decent person needs an American Forces Network commercial to let them know that shaking babies or taking advantage of women is wrong. The military should focus on the positive aspects of service members and encourage them. When the criminals commit their acts, find them and expedite their separation from the military and into prison.

—former31B

KEEP VOLUNTEER FORCE

Do we want the people who are resistant to deployment to serve? I do not mean people who are reluctant to deploy in the sense that they would rather remain at home with family or whatever, but for those who actually go out of their way to avoid deployments.

I was not alive for Vietnam, but from family and others who I have talked to who were there, they say that a lot of problems on the ground were with personnel who simply didn’t want to be there and behaved in that manner. Do we risk the lives of honorable soldiers/sailors/airmen with the exposure and dependence on those who may not be giving their deployment 100 percent?

—Variable Wind

UNIFORM DEBATE CONTINUES

Check out the new Army Combat Pants [“Soldiers in Afghanistan to test new Army Combat Pants,” May 18]. Now they want to give us built-in kneepads …

Here’s a hint: We had a great uniform in the Battle Dress Uniform. Simply take and make the Army Combat Uniform out of the BDU material, only with the new camouflage pattern.

I am sick of being out the money we were supposed to save every year with the ACUs because they want to keep making ridiculous-looking “modifications” to this worthless uniform. Why not just put the new digital pattern on a set of BDUs and be done with it already?

—RONALD45