Torn

Yes, I have praised President Obama for his humanitarian decision to send U.S. troops to West Africa to help combat the Ebola epidemic … possible pandemic … see: Ebola. But subsequent events have led me to have some misgivings about this decision. Now, I read that the troops being sent there … 4,000 before its all over … are elite soldiers from the 101^st Airborne Division … see: Pamela Geller Blog.

To me this seems a curious choice … and so my growing doubts about this mission are re-enforced. Clearly this disease is more easily transmitted than we have been previously led to believe ... and the living conditions in an Army bivouac camp are far less sanitary and controllable than in the Dallas Presbyterian hospital.

Is President Obama purposely trying to punish these solders by sending them on a mission for which they seem unsuited and untrained. It is almost a certainty that one or more of them will contract this dreaded disease while there … a far less soldierly fate than being shot at by a RPG. Does Obama have a hidden agenda to this deployment as suggested by Pamela Geller in the above referenced article?

As a result of my current chariness about our fearless leader's decision, I offer three rational suggestions for this mission:

1) All the American soldiers that go to West Africa should be volunteers … and that they should be thoroughly trained beforehand in the hazards of Ebola … with an opting-out choice at the end of this training.

2) Tours of duty there should be no longer than two months … without any re-deployments … and with one month of quarantine on a remote tropical island before returning home. Any soldiers who contracts this disease should be flown back to the U.S. for premier treatment.

3) Like any good commander, Obama should spend two or three days there with his troops … once fully deployed. Leaders should never ask their troops to do anything that they themselves would not do.