Guest Post
Tomorrow Facebook will be full of people posting their “Thank you veterans” to their timeline for all their friends, and most likely few veterans to see. As a veteran, I can tell you that we really don’t want “thank you’s”. We want cash.
The reason we want cash is because we as society have decided to pay the people who are ready to give their lives for our safety and freedom near poverty levels while we pay our professional athletes, who basically play children games for our amusement, millions. We do this through our elected representatives who set military pay. And we should be ashamed.
So instead of participating in the usual “I support the troops” circle jerk to make yourself feel good about yourself, find a veteran and give them cash. If you really can’t spare any cash, give them stuff. It’s veteran’s day after all, so logically you should be giving veterans presents. At the very least, give them a hug. But make it a big hug.
You can also hold your representatives accountable and make sure you elect people who are for paying our troops what they deserve for what they sacrifice for us. No one in the military should ever qualify for food stamps. They deserve more than we could probably ever give them, but that should not stop us from giving them a lot. It is sad that it is the very democratic process that they pledge their life to protect that is failing them.
Former Staff Sergeant Bryan Bankston,
USAF,
Gulf War Veteran
I think there should be a ‘not’ in the second to last sentence 🙂 On target sentiment – well-said.
1Hurray for speaking up, saying what we all feel, Bryan. No military, no military families, and no educators at any level should qualify for food stamps. Where’s the best place to find veterans? At a parade tomorrow, maybe? Let’s make the sports teams and their coaches eligible for food stamps instead.
2Fixed it. Thank you.
3During the Reagan administration we had a very, very tough time of it and my husband went down to the proper office to apply for food stamps. He was told that he did qualify but he would have to wait to be put on the list. They were providing military families first. My husband was gobsmacked! He had been an E4 in his youth and valued the experience. He couldn’t believe this country would deliberately impoverish the military. Yes we did yell at our congresscritter. He turned out to be a vet himself and had been fighting for better pay for the military from day one but an administration that believed more in anecdotes (Usually false!!!!) than paying the military decently wasn’t listening. According to them, the privilege of serving and maybe even dying under the flag should be enough. It was at that time that one of the executive department secretaries quit cuz he couldn’t live in D.C. with a wife on only one hundred thousand a year.
4“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” -John Fitzgerald Kennedy Yes, like JFK said, saying you appreciate Veterans is not enough, show it through action!
5They’ve already raised the portion beneficiaries pay for meds on Tricare once since I’ve been on it, and planning to raise it more. And apparently there are other cutbacks in benefits also. I’m only a former spouse, whose ex helped me get enrolled and I have good enough from Medicare and former employment that I only use it for meds.
But I think of those for whom it’s their only insurance. As far as I’m concerned ALL their health care needs should be paid by the government.
I get upset whenever I see ads for the Wounded Warrior charity because I think Why is such needed? The government should be doing that for those who gave so much and not making them depend on private charity for their rehab. Not that I’m upset with people doing what they can for veterans, like those who make houses wheelchair accessible or such. I just think the basic needs that they wouldn’t have if they hadn’t served should be the government’s responsibility
6My dad, who retired from the USAF as an E9 in 1973, was tasked with interviewing airmen and generating a report about retention shortly before he retired. Low pay was one of the major reasons cited by those he interviewed as their reason for separating from the military.
7War is the ultimate waste. We can’t pay our soldiers enough to keep their families off food stamps, yet we buy $600 million airplanes that can’t fly in a light rain? It looks like simply preparing for war is a huge waste of resources, too. Maybe we should adopt the pentagon as the International symbol for waste.
8Well said.
9I agree with Marge Woods and all the other commenters. Pay the Veterans and active military folks what the celebs and sports folks make, throw in the TV so-called evangalists in for good measure, too!!
And, Bryan, I do thank you for your service!!
10And while we’re ranting, how about ranting generally about the folks who got big cuts in SNAP. That would include military dependents. Single mothers on disability with MS or other bad disease who have to decide where to spend that $200 (food? new shoes?) after they pay for gas and medicine and their measly rent on a one bedroom. Not apartment, bedroom. Food stamps cut from $238 to $15 a month. We’re heading back toward the 1800s. You might want to read a young adult novel titled CITY OF ORPHANS by Avi where corruption causes starvation, homelessness, folks doing who knows what just to survive, if they survive. In this book, a teenager gets set up to be arrested for stealing a gold watch chain and her brother is the only one in the family who has the courage to go to the prison and try to figure out how to get her out. A girl who lives on the street is adopted by his family and shares their meals of fish head soup and bread, and rescues him from a local mob. Several good novels for kids are out, ones about homelessness and problems that go with it. Just google homelessness juvenile fiction.
11I was in, but single, room, board and cigarette/beer money.
Girl friend and I explored her coming to Europe (69-71) to be with me, she would have had to work full time and I would have needed a part time job to make it. And I was an E-5 the whole time.
We waited.
12To W.C. Peterson:
First, I agree that war is the ultimate waste. And some people gain from it and different people lose.
The reason so much is spent on military hardware that often doesn’t work is that defense contractors contribute large sums to Congressional campaigns. And then there are people like Dick Cheney who came into power and gave lucrative contracts to friends and former companies like Halliburton.
13If you think this is bad just look at what National Guard troops get if they’re wounded on active duty. A greater and increasing burden of combat in Afghanistan is falling to them since their benefits are much cheaper if they get hurt. Heck, odds are at best 50/50 they’ll even get the purple hearts they qualify for.
14In ’69 & ’70 we had enlisted men at Ft.Jackson enrolling in the food stamp program and their families on Medicaide because we didn’t have enough Pediatricians at Ft.Jackson. I was ordered to decline to complete the employer portion of their applications. I refused the order and was brought before a disciplinary board. My Commander demurred when instructed to put the order in writing. Even his military assigned counsel knew that the order was either illegal or inappropriate.
15This issue is a microcosm of life under republi-can’ts. Government programs are pushed off to religious organizations for them to proselytize a subservient and docile community of needs who can’t say no to the wealthy ‘faith-based’ provider who requires fealty for shelter or food.
Government under republi-can’ts is for transferring tax receipts to the wealthy and collecting those receipts from the poverty stricken; transferring wealth or property from the people to the media owners; transferring accountability from office-holders to the electorate who didn’t vote for them.
The VA has made transparent strides under Sinseki, but there needs be a revolution in their persective. Instead of this culture of indefencible mistrust of veterans, accept that veterans are DUE services, and provide awards of compensatory benefits at the hospital, rather than some secret location.
It’s time for comeone other than Hagel or Shinseki to be accountable for VA performance.
J.Hubbert
US Army ’66 >> ’04
You don’t want to get me started! I have already reamed out some politicians…
16I have family members who have fought in every war in this country from the French and Indian War, through today, when a grandson, who we are NOT pleased with, enlisted in the Guard and is now probably going on active duty, in January..because he has again screwed up in college. I have two flags here from coffins..one from 58 years ago today… I was 17 when my father died and I was handed the flag. I also have HIS father’s flag here..a 50 star…which I was handed. 15 years later. My grandfather was a battlefield surgeon in France during WWI; he did NOT spare me details.
My husband, brother, foster father, step father, were in Vietnam. It was still a ‘citizen army’; yes, there were many who were career, and that was as it should be, as there was a balance. I feel we need the draft back; it just might make people think a little more before we go running off to fight another war. It might make Congress understand if their children (males and females) are drafted, and then are treated with the ‘TS’ attitude of Congress today. Our small county has 23,000 veterans in a population of 140,000. Our clinic has 2 part time psychs..and appointments are 3-5 MONTHS apart, and not much closer for those who have returned from 3 and 4 tours this round. There are no jobs, and those in the Guard are taking the brunt of the issues. Their families are here, with no base support, and not fully understanding the ways of a military family. Families have a cut in income; three and four tours in 4 years…
Congress is ultimately accountable for most of the issues; they pull shutdowns, they defund programs, and cut funding. They even ignore the Pentagon because it ‘doesn’t suit what they want’…
I observed Veteran’s Day by emailing my Congressvarmint [and he is one] to support military pay high enough to keep our enlisted above food stamp levels.
17Thank you for your service Bryan and Amen.
Dianne in PA, well done. I also suggest folks donate a bit extra to food banks & homeless shelters.
Whenever I see a young man or woman on the street, holding a “veteran-please help” sign, I just want to punch the W & his Dick in the face.
18I am a vet who served in the Navy from 1983-88. I found myself where St Ronnie Raygun was playing games with the Islamic Republic or Iran and again when he was pussyfooting with Gaddafy and that “Line of Death.” Some have PTSD and stay far, far away from the VA.
The military has become just another way for the wealthy and big business to become even wealthier. And it isn’t by wearing a uniform.
This country need to institute universal military conscription. If everyone, not just the working class, had a son or daughter in the military things would change.
19Okie-Dokie–My son is a soldier, and he’s celebrating my birthday today at his post in Georgia. He says–and I think he’s got a point–that the volunteer military is a good idea because it can be more selective about the quality of our forces than the old conscription system allowed.
But I don’t think the military is the only way people can serve the country, and I think national service of some kind is in order. One of the great thing about the draft was that it put people of all social orders together with a common cause, and that taught them a lot about “the other side.”
Unfortunately, too many of our “representatives” today are too young to have been in the draft, and they simply have never seen the other side of the white picket fence. Putting young adults into service–whether military or otherwise–might help them see that the rest of us are people, too.
20Good grief, do we have a mini-Bubba right here in *Roswell*?! I am genuinely thrilled, if a bit puzzled–not many active duty military here, though in other parts of the state, lots and lots.
21PoliticusUSA: Republicans Honor Our Veterans By Making Sure That They Are Hungry and Struggling
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/11/11/republicans-honor-veterans-making-hungry-struggling.html
22Republicans “honored” veterans by cutting food stamps. About 900,000 are recipients.
23Nicely said. I point I want to make. The military tends to vote republican. Until that changes military pay will not go up.
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