I know that I take this personal because I am one of them. Again there are groups of people going after the military. Complaining that they are paid too much and/or the retirement package is too generous. I know my opinion is biased but I still say BULL SHIT (sorry mom) to both complaints.
I only did 20 years and had to struggle to get there because my back was and still is very bad. The military is a young person job. You can’t stay in until you are 65 unless you are a general. Even if you are in support like I was you still have to train and let me tell you it was not easy. If you are unable to train you will be kicked out. It’s called a medical discharge or retirement.
People want to cheer for the troops but they don’t want to pay them. I’m not talking about everyone, just those that are complaining. They will wear the ribbon or bumper sticker saying “Support the Troops” but when it comes to funding they say “NO”. I will be the first to say that we spend too much money on defense. By that I mean building way too many airplanes and tanks and not enough body armor. Where most countries have 500 planes we have 5000. I believe we are planning for a type of war that will likely never happen. Like when the country was founded the way war was fought is not the way we did it. The British lined up and marched out in the open. We hid behind trees and took cover. We were in violation of the rules of war. We had no choice because we were outnumbered and they were well trained. It was a new type of fighting and the British were not prepared for it. We need to be prepared to fight any type war and we will always need troops.
I say that because the people that I’m talking about continue to push for more aircrafts and tanks but then want to cut the pay and benefits of the troops. When they do this it’s not just the active duty they want to cut but the retired as well. Our contracts are not like they are with a company they are as if they were written in sand. They can be washed away and rewritten after completion of service. My fear is that the military pay and benefits may be reduced to the point that we don’t have enough people to make a career out of it.
As it is now were don’t have enough people. Look at our military now. We have very young men and women doing 7 and 8 tours in combat. They do this for VERY little money. That is so very WRONG. No one should be asked to risk their lives that many times in (as with everything that I write) my opinion. The suicide rate for active duty is higher than it has ever been. Stress takes its toll on you no matter how strong you are. There is a reason these people are killing themselves. The military is not an easy gig.
It’s not just the wars they have to deal with. They have training for their job (medic, computers, mechanic…) but also training to be a soldier (weapons, chemical warfare, hand to hand combat training…). They have to exercise to stay in shape. Then they have to deal with PCS (permanent change of station) about every 2 to 3 years. Then you throw in a few TDY (temporary duty) assignments every year or so. Not to mention the Deployments like to Iraq and Afghanistan. The military is not easy by any means. Now we have these crazy people saying we are too nice to them.
I had someone tell me that it’s not right that I could do 20 years and retire. They said you can’t do that in any other job. Well the military is not like any other job. It’s a job that most people choose not to do but everyone needs. I thought about trying to go into detail and tell them why but then thought, what’s the point. You know how it is when you talk to someone that has their mind made up before the conversation began. People complain about the price of insurance until they need it. It’s easy to complain about the military when you have never served in it. If my mother didn’t read this I would have lots of colorful word to use about the people that complain because this really gets under my skin. So I will just say the military have 20 year retirement because physically people can’t do much more than that.
It’s painful when you go into a contract with your government and you complete your end of the bargain then your government changes what they agreed to. It’s as if they kicked you in the balls then said thank you.
To those people that want to change the military benefits and think we are paid too much, YOU’RE WELCOME.
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