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Vt. soldiers can’t get home from Iraq

WASHINGTON — Vermont soldiers who have completed their tours of duty in Iraq cannot get home because of flight delays caused in part by the recent bankruptcy of ATA Airlines, the Vermont congressional delegation said Wednesday.

Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch wrote to the Pentagon this week to try to help two Vermont soldiers whose parents contacted the lawmakers about their sons’ plight. The soldiers, whose names the lawmakers did not disclose for privacy reasons, are stuck in Baghdad.

“After completing their service to our country overseas, our men and women deserve a safe return home without delays,” the delegation wrote Tuesday in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The delays are partly the result of ATA Airlines’ announcement early this month that it was discontinuing service and filing for bankruptcy. The military had hired ATA Airlines to ferry troops between the U.S. and overseas bases. The Indianapolis-based airline had been contracted to fly 70 military charters through September, which Air Force Times reported earlier this month.

Still, the Vermont lawmakers said the Pentagon should be doing more to help service men and women find alternative flights home despite ATA’s woes and other bankruptcies and maintenance problems that have hit the airline industry in recent weeks. The transportation mess reportedly has delayed scores of U.S. soldiers from returning home from Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait.

“First and foremost, (the Vermont soldiers’ parents) wish to know when their loved ones will be returning home, and second, they want answers about how this delay was allowed to happen,” the Vermont delegation wrote to Gates.

The delegation asked Gates to provide details about how many service members’ return flights have been delayed, for how long and what steps the Pentagon is taking to ensure that the soldiers get home as soon as possible. As of Wednesday afternoon, the Vermonters had not received an official response from the Pentagon, said Welch spokesman Andrew Savage.

“As a result of the troop surge, many of the service members participating in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom have had their deployments extended from 12 to 15 months,” the delegation wrote in the letter to Gates.

“Ask any of these men and women when they are going home and most can give you a precise day and time. The same is true of their families who have been eagerly anticipating the return of their loved one. To be told within days of shipping out that your trip home has been delayed until a date uncertain is demoralizing,” the letter said.