It's not a great vacation, but at least you're not using your leave. With internet access and cable tv, it would be entirely bearable.

Military get paid no matter what; you're breathing (or MIA) you are getting paid--civilians don't have that luxury.

the legal authority.

New Jersey has neither.

It is apparently not just an American phenomena.

Did you read the comments? They are worse than the Yahoo trolls. Or they ARE the Yahoo trolls.

Just ask any cop. They'll gun you down in the street for no reason if they feel like it, and their brothers-in-blue will stand behind them every step of the way.

that one of the reasons why the military wants a quarantine is that they do not completely trust the young soldiers to effectively and honestly self-monitor.

If true, that is an interesting point. However, for any national politician to publicly make such a disparaging claim about our troops would be political suicide, no less within a week of a hotly contested election.

Not comparing to health care workers, but travelers entering the USA from the 3 countries. Comparing to HCW will open another can of worms which I don't want to do.

is popular with many people, and on a bipartisan basis.

coming into the USA from there.

I also know experts advise against such a travel ban, saying it would not work and would be a negative thing.

Media exists to see ad time, and fear sells.

They don't have a choice on vaccinations, either.

Yet the federal govt doesn't see fit to quarantine nurses who have had direct contact with patients. It doesn't make sense, unless the miltary knows something we don't. I'm not posing a conspiracy theory, just pointing out that if it is safe for a nurse who directly cared for an ebola patient, why can't a soldier who was just in the area with no contact??

The mind boggles.

it's hard for commanders to know whether any of their troops have come in contact with any (potentially diseased) locals, and to what extent, unless they've all been strictly confined to the base. So it's a practical safeguard to tack on a quarantine period for returning members--it's simply an order like all the others they follow.

who definitely were exposed to the virus, should also face a mandatory quarantine upon their return, as a simple "practical safeguard" to protect the public. Of course, this would not comply with expressed scientific fact that asymptomatic pose no threat to the public.

necessary. The military is a different set-up, lots of young enlisteds living in communal situations/dorms/barracks with shared facilities and close quarters, so a home quarantine situation probably isn't applicable.

I admit that I thought you may have believed the soldiers should face a quarantine, but not the civilian aid workers.

If your only distinction is really the terms and conditions of confinement, your position is certainly consistent, unlike our president.

ridiculous and selfish. I can understand not being happy in a tent, but they should be comfortable with staying home.

What has been the President's inconsistency on this matter? Please tell!

who we are told did not work directly with Ebola-infected patients, are a greater risk to the public and require a mandatory quarantine, but returning civilian workers, who were actually exposed to the virus, should not face a mandatory quarantine?

The president has explicitly stated that the only basis for any quarantine decisions should be actual medical necessity, and that anyone who is asymptomatic need not be quarantined. If both the returning troops and civilians are both asymptomatic, why should the soldiers be quarantined but not the civilians?

I also fully understand that the president has greater legal authority to restrict the soldiers, but that has no bearing on whether the restrictions are scientifically justified. Any justification other than medical risk violates the president's own expressed standards, and if the recommendations of the military brass to the president are inconsistent with the science, they should be ignored or countermanded. Recruitment difficulties by various medical NGO's similarly have no effect on the contagiousness or risk of either the returning soldiers or civilians.

Until such time that someone of sufficient authority from the executive branch resolves this medical conundrum, it appears to be hypocrisy on the part of the president.

It appears that both the soldiers and civilians need only self-monitor, yet the president has, at the very least, acquiesced to a mandatory quarantine of the troops, all while criticizing the various governors' mandatory quarantine orders of the returning aid workers.