The military will not be paid. They will eventually get back pay. It’s hardest on those that are deployed. They can’t just try to pick up some work on the side to make ends meet. The civilian employees that are furloughed get paid later too, but they don’t have to work. The military has to carry on, paid or not. Plus as General Mathis said today all maintenance that is not already started will be postponed. We are already in a pickle with ragged ass equipment, lack of training time etc. This will just put us further behind.
I was a contractor for 16 years, through 2 or 3 shutdowns- maybe more my mind is not what it once was. Even though I was a contractor I was considered essential, so I did go to work same as usual during all shutdowns. I was not paid until later, much later for the first one I went through. In fact it was a nightmare to get paid...at one point a dim congressman stated on CSPAN “we don’t have to pay the contractors” he later said he meant they didn’t have to pay those of us that worked in a timely fashion but at the time I was like WHAT? And they didn’t, even though with laws about that meant when I did eventually get paid they had to pay me interest. I think the mess had to do with someone thinking no contractors would be working during the shutdown so they made no provisions to pay those of us that did. It took me about 6 months to collect that pay. After that I did get paid fairly quickly after a shut down but never on time.
I know there are many here that think working for the government or being a government contractor is a gravy train- maybe for some but not for me or the folks I worked with. To me it was at times like working for a nut house with the nuts in charge. It was so stressful my husband used to beg me to quit, but I am pretty stubborn.