Hey Government, Pick on Someone Your Own Size
August 16, 2011Did you know that the military is only 1% of the American population? When I found out this fact, I thought to myself how is making cuts to 1% of the population going to save the economy. Simple answer: it won’t. People on government assisted living are a larger percentage of the population, how about we start there instead. 1 in 6 Americans receive some form of government assistance*, and enrollment in the food stamp program has climbed 50% since President Obama took office-50%. Now, I am sure a good portion of people who are receiving assistance are not physically able to support themselves, but I do not believe 1 in 6 people in America fall under that umbrella. The answer to helping this economy is stricter social reform not cuts in any area of National defense or any benefits that our troops rate. Our Nation has demanded a decade of war out of them with no end in sight. We must not sit back and hope that someone takes care of this for us; we, the followers of the Marine Corps Association, the ones serving and the ones who support those serving need to stand up for what we know is right.
Elected officials make a salary of more than 5 times my own husband, so how can those same officials say “let’s change that military retirement.” The only way to prevent this is to educate ourselves, speak up, and another key item: make sure you are registered to vote.
- Educate yourself & others! Read the report published by the Defense Board***: http://dbb.defense.gov/pdf/DBB_Military_Retirement_Final_Presentationpdf.pdf
- Please, please, please share here what you agree with & disagree with, even if anonymously so I can do something on a bigger platform. I cannot make enough noise with just my own opinion, I need your facts as well
- Speak up: Let your elected officials know how you feel.
- Register to vote: http://www.fvap.gov. This site is specific for military & their families who move often.
Time to get to work- let’s save our military retirement, let’s stand up for our troops who are deployed so they can concentrate on their mission.
"Our nation demands much from its military, and the retirement benefits in place are not gifts. They have been earned through blood, sweat, toil, repeated deployments, missed births, birthdays, anniversaries and sometimes loss of limbs or life. Shifting the burden of our nation’s fiscal mess on to the backs of our military (less than one percent of our population who volunteer for decades of service in harm’s way defending our way of life) is morally bankrupt." - GEN Sullivan, USA, Ret
Works Cited:
* http://blog.heritage.org/2010/09/07/one-in-six-americans-receives-government-assistance/
** http://www.heritage.org/Research/Factsheets/2011/03/Welfare-Reform-The-Next-Steps
Comments
Getting the boot
The Marine Corps is kicking my Husband to the curb because of the new rule change for Sgt's. He has served proudly and honorably for 11 years, and all of his future plans are going down in smoke. He has never been in trouble, and has always done exactly what he was told. The Marine Corps is not what it use to be, and it makes me sad. I use to be a proud Marine Wife. Now, I am a bitter Marine Wife.
Long Term
Modifying or reducing retirment benefits will have tragic consequences. For officers, it is a slap in the face in terms of how they invested their previous education. Instead of entering corporate America with their talent and education (which we probably wouldnt be in the economic situation we are in due to bad corporate leadership decisions) and making money for themselves, they decided to invest that talent and education in their country by becoming a leader of Marines thereby sacrificing, over the long term, financial benefits and experience that would ordinarily be compenstated, in a smaller scale, by military retirement. For our enlisted, a 20 or 30 year Marine that entered directly after high school and poured his/her heart and soul into the Corps and was not afforded an oppurtunity for higher education due to requirements of duty and deployments and whose body is typically aged past his/her years, relies on current retirement to bridge the gap in the time it takes to make him competetive in the civilian work force (go to school, etc) as he too invested his skills in the country and Corps. Typically those skills, developed over years of getting it done for the Corps, rarely translate into the things corporate America looks for; particularly in a bad economy. So, for this to be on the table is ludicrous. We will see a drop in quality of our officer corps, and literally see our enlisted veterans be forced to focus on post retirement early in their career, or face a reduction in financial support for their families with a bleak outlook for employment. We will have homeless veterans for sure. Americans tell us thank you when they see us. I would prefer an outcry against this instead. Especially since your average civilian employer will gladly buy a combat veteran a beer, but wont or cant offer him a job.
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