Two excellent articles in the NY Times on American soldiers.

The first is a photo essay on battlefield medicine and the care that those soldiers who are wounded in Iraq recieve. I strongly suggest that you take the time to view the pictures.

The second article is on how creditors are treating reservists who are being placed on active duty and shipped overseas.

Though statistics are scarce, court records and interviews with military and civilian lawyers suggest that Americans heading off to war are sometimes facing distracting and demoralizing demands from financial companies trying to collect on obligations that, by law, they cannot enforce.

The article discusses the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act:

The law, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, protects all active-duty military families from foreclosures, evictions and other financial consequences of military service. The Supreme Court has ruled that its provisions must “be liberally construed to protect those who have been obliged to drop their own affairs to take up the burdens of the nation.”

I have to wonder whether those who would evict the wife of a soldier serving in Iraq, or foreclose on the house of a reservist called to active duty are the same people driving around with the “Support Our Troops” magnets on their cars.