This makes me very angry: McClatchy reports that Obama says ‘no’ to pensions for WW II Alaska guards

WASHINGTON — In a strongly worded message to Congress outlining its priorities for a military spending bill, the Obama administration today said it disapproved of including money for pensions for 26 elderly members of the World War II-era Alaska Territorial Guard.

The Guardsmen are among those assigned to protect Alaska from the Japanese during World War II.

The Army decided this year to no longer count service in the Guard in calculating the military’s 20-year minimum for retirement pay, although it still counts for military benefits. As a result, their pensions were decreased in January.

An estimated 300 members are still living from the original 6,600-member unit formed in 1942 to protect Alaska, then a territory, from attack. The 26 men have enough other military service to reach the 20-year minimum for retirement pay but would lose it if the Territorial Guard service doesn’t count.

Alaska did not become a state until 1959. During World War II Alaska was a Federal territory with the governor appointed by the Federal government. The Japanese occupied the three western most islands in the Aleutian chain. The Territorial Guard were protecting Federal lands, and defending national borders under the command of a Federal officer, the governor.

Alaska served as a major link in the supply effort for the Soviet Union which is why the AlCan Highway was built. The state is still the site of major military facilities, even following the draw down following the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War.

This blatant act of disrespect by Obama is the sort of thing that was a regular feature of the Rumfield Reign at the Department of Defense. This is nothing a real Democrat would do. This is just miserly and mean-spirited. [There is an excellent and precise term available in English for this type of action, but it causes the vapors among stupid people, so I won’t use it.]