I'M NOT TRYING TO BE negative here, but I think this bill is largely ceremonial. The Army already authorizes free phone calls, called "morale calls" from the Defense Switching Network (DSN) phones down range. The problem isn't that troops don't call because they can't afford to...but rather that there are too few phones...way too few phones. Still, its a nice gesture. Read about it here.

Servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan may get free monthly phone calls home if House members decide to support their Senate colleagues, who have twice given the idea a thumbs-up.

The free phone call proposal has already obtained full support in the Senate this spring in both a free-standing bill sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and again in the 2004 defense budget authorization.

McCain’s “Troops Phone Home Free Act of 2003,” which passed the full Senate on April 1, provides a monthly allotment of free telephone calling minutes to any servicemembers “stationed outside the United States who are directly supporting military operations in Iraq or Afghanistan.”

Under the act, deployed members would be issued prepaid phone cards “or an equivalent telecommunications benefit which includes access to telephone service,” with a value not to exceed $40 a month per person.