Posted on 10/11/2013 4:46:20 PM PDT by SkyPilot
That is your opinion, and for every anectodal story someone adds like yours, there are many others of where the US military is and has been doing a tremendous deal of "good" in the world. That peace and stability translates into national and global economic well being, as well as alleviating human suffering. We can argue whether or not that is in our interest on a case-by-case business, but what the military does is "not legitimate" because you declare it so.
As far as military retirement goes, while some will argue about retirement after 20 years, the truth of the matter is that these personnel should definitely be encouraged to move into government service. But instead of getting both retirement and a GS paycheck, they should not be considered as retired until they actually retire, with their retirement reflecting *both* their military and GS service.
Secretary Hagel (perhaps the worst SECDEF in many decades) wants the same thing. It will probably happen, but I completely disagree with you. Less than 1% of the current US population wears the uniform of their nation and sacrifices in blood and deprivation to serve. Why we are singling out these folks and attempting to punish them fore serving 20-25 in the military, and then attempting to make them second class citizens if they take another job is nothing but pettiness. We have massive debt and deficits because of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and 70+ unearned entitlement programs, not because a retired Army E-6 making $24,000 in a well deserved military retirement takes a Federal job.
“That peace and stability translates into national and global economic well being, as well as alleviating human suffering.”
That is the old way of thinking, because it is too expensive to continue. Prior to the Pax Americana, unless America had a direct interest, America tried to stay out of it, and used diplomacy only to achieve our goals.
This is not really a choice on our part. We just cannot afford to horn in to every scrap, disaster, crisis, coup, civil war, and oppression in the world. There are relatively few trigger points that could lead to a major war, something that would impact us like a medium sized nuclear exchange. We need to pay attention to those.
The rest of the world can bugger off, from our perspective, because we have no real national interest in them.
>> What are you talking about?
Just commenting on the added affect of the shutdown. Not disputing the effects of the cuts.
Gotcha.
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