A slap in the face to one of Our Boys...

Denver Post: Soldier returns from Iraq, finds all he owned was sold
After serving a year in Iraq, Army Reserve Spec. Patrick Rogalin came home and found that everything he had put in a storage locker - essentially everything he owned - had been sold.

...and real American patriots step up to make things right...

The Springfield News-Leader: Soldier flooded with offers of aid
Patrick Rogalin's story has struck a nerve with America. Rogalin returned from Iraq in October, only to find his belongings had been auctioned by a storage unit business. Now people from across the country are flooding the News-Leader with offers of help...

...Now people from across the country are flooding the News-Leader with offers of help.

Their comments arrived in more than 50 e-mails and phone calls, all wanting to do something to help the 20-year-old Army Reserve specialist.

One man offered to send Rogalin $1,000 anonymously.

Lawyers are lining up to represent him for free.

That is a major league wow.

A local woman wants to pay for his textbooks while he's at Missouri State University.

Those offers have been forwarded to Rogalin, who doesn't yet know how he'll handle them.

Still, his ordeal inspired many to call or write.

"At the very least, upon hearing the circumstances they should have been very apologetic, completely refunded his storage fees, and paid him twice what he lost just to show their gratitude for his service to his country," said Brian Waln of Springfield.

"Instead, they offer a couple thousand bucks, probably tainting his credit, and push him aside."

"If I owned a storage place like that, I would have kept it until I knew what had happened to him," said Jan Hathcock of Republic. "When I read that, it made me very sad he was going through something like that. All of America should step up and help this guy out."

"I can't imagine any business doing this to a guy who's been in Iraq over a couple thousand bucks," said David Holt of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "If it was my business, I would have paid it. What's a couple thousand dollars for all the bad publicity they're going to get?"

Exactly.

Due to time constraints, we now move to further action.

Rogalin said he doesn't know what to make of all the attention.
But his mother does.

"They took advantage of him," said Susan Molina, of Whitman, Mass. "He feels tricked. He feels bullied, like he was backed into a corner. I'm furious."

Molina has another son, Henry, serving as a medic in Iraq. She worries that he and other soldiers serving overseas may come home to the same kind of problem her son Patrick discovered.

"There are some things you just don't do, and you don't crap on a soldier that's been serving his country in Iraq," she said.

Amen to that. We had enough of that vile nonsense after the Vietnam War...hey, wait a minute! Do you think that could be more than mere coincidence?