<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Brendan:
. . . I find it a shame that Congress has not yet funded tickets all the way home for our troops, so in celebration of Veterans' Day & Thanksgiving I have donated 5183 DL miles & 1810 UA miles to HeroMiles. I want to encourage everyone to do the same & or write their Congresspersons. <snip></font>
Much good Karma to you for your donation,
Brendan. That was a very nice thing to do.
With respect to Congress funding the tickets, see my post of Nov 18, 2003 12:52 AM in
this thread.
Essentially, what the news article says is that Congress has authorized the Army to spend up to $55 million from their Operation and Maintenance appropriation for this Fiscal Year to pay for the domestic leg of flights for soldiers on R&R from Iraq and Afghanistan. Army is still trying to work out how to implement this and whether it is legal in view of another law.
Note that even if this is implemented, it doesn't cover everyone, so the donated miles will still have a good use.
(The story also notes that as of Friday 14 November, over 60 million miles had been donated through
www.heromiles.org alone.)