Servicemembers Find Themselves Battling On Home Front As Well As In War Zones; Financial Struggles Make Maintaining Security Clearances Uncertain

In Las Vegas, Nevada, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports:

• These soldiers and airmen have dropped bombs or have seen them explode in Iraq and Afghanistan, so they know firsthand the stress of fighting the nation's wars. Now they are battling a different kind of stress at home in the Las Vegas Valley -- the chronic stress that weighs on them from being at ground zero of the mortgage crisis.
• When they get orders to move somewhere else, they have no choice but to go. In many cases, they face six-figure losses on their homes through short sales or foreclosure.
• They also risk losing their security clearances, which could prevent them from flying warplanes and leading troops after they arrive at their new assignments. "This has been more stressful than my deployment," said Lt. Col. Eric Wishart, who is trying to sell a home worth 60 percent less than he paid for it. "And going to Afghanistan is no picnic."
• Wishart is not alone. More than a thousand airmen at Nellis Air Force Base have been trapped in the mortgage crisis and are unable to refinance, according to a survey by Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev. The survey found 740 airmen upside down on their mortgages don't qualify for the Pentagon aid program, another 263 can't sell their homes at a break-even price and some are renting them at a monthly loss.
• Of the base's 8,932 personnel, 32 are in foreclosure and 98 have completed short sales or are in the process of completing one. After seeing this snapshot of what is happening at Nellis, Heck proposed an amendment to a defense bill to shed more light on the problem. While the bill doesn't provide funding for an assistance program, it would study the problem nationwide across all branches of the services.
• "Service members become distracted by personal and financial issues, rather than focusing on their mission," Heck said earlier this month , noting that a soldier's ruined credit makes it difficult for them to maintain their security clearances.

For more, including the stories of a couple of the airmen, see When troops get orders to move, some risk losing houses.