The world according to Riff.

FRESNO, Calif. - Forced to leave the combat zone after his two brothers died in the Iraq war, Army Spc. Jason Hubbard faced another battle once he returned home: The military cut off his family's health care, stopped his G.I. educational subsidies and wanted him to repay his sign-up bonus

"I felt as if in some ways I was being punished for leaving even though it was under these difficult circumstances," Hubbard told The Associated Press. "The situation that happened to me is not a one-time thing. It's going to happen to other people, and to have a law in place is going to ease their tragedy in some way."

Hubbard, 33, and his youngest brother, Nathan, enlisted while they were still grieving for their brother, Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Hubbard, who was 22 when he was killed in a 2004 bomb explosion in Ramadi.

At their request, the pair were assigned to the same unit, the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, and deployed to Iraq the next year.

In August, 21-year-old Cpl. Nathan died when his Black Hawk helicopter crashed near Kirkuk. Jason was part of the team assigned to remove his comrades' bodies from the wreckage.

Hubbard accompanied his little brother's body on a military aircraft to Kuwait, then on to California. He kept steady during Nathan's burial at Clovis Cemetery, standing in dress uniform between his younger brothers' graves as hundreds sobbed in the heat.

But Hubbard broke his silence when he found his wife, pregnant with their second child, had been cut off from the transitional health care the family needed to ease back to civilian life after he was discharged in October. (He did get his benifits back at the end of the article, and a bill started in his honor, to fix this problem for future soldiers...glad they did the right thing after all)

The ARMY is going to "rectify" the problem, and Im sure they will.  But what heartless beurocratic personel man did this in the first place...Come on jeez..its not like he wanted this to happen, he answered the call to duty, and his brothers gave all.....I hope the jerks that only see whats in front of their noses, and not see the person, (in this case), get a good ole c.o. reaming, and maybe even busted down a notch or two!...I know rules are rules, but those rules are able to be modified within reason on a case by case basis by the attending officers, if they care enough, or if its brought to their attention....And as for ARMY specialist Jason Hubbard, my condolences for his losses, and hope he and his family do OK......HOOOAHH!!! .....RIFF