Soldier’s only sin is poverty

Leonard Pitts' Jan. 31 column, “Breeding nothing but contempt for the nation's poor,” reminds me of the Billy Miller affair. A member of the Illinois National Guard from Galesburg, he's been held hostage by the Army in Afghanistan, five months after the rest of his brigade returned home.

The Army's excuse is that it allegedly found adult pornography on his computer, a crime punishable, in an Army court martial, by two years imprisonment.

Miller, his family and his friends have been denounced as “trailer trash,” “perverts” and worse, by what seems to be a cadre of Army-supporting Miller-haters. That reminds me of George Bernard Shaw's comment, “The only sin is poverty.”

I've written my congressman about this, and I know he's contacted the Army. Jonathan Turley, a respected law blogger, wrote, regarding Miller's case Jan. 16, “This story is a national disgrace.”

Gerald Baker

Cedar Falls