And this is "breaking news"???

Give me a "break", DD. The military has ALWAYS been paid crap wages for YEARS! This has nothing to do with Iraq/Bush/whatever.

When I was in high school in the 1980's, I read a story in the paper about military members in the DC area that had to go on foodstamps in order to have food for their families. Were these troops enlisted? Nope, junior OFFICERS! The last line in the paper said that if officers had to go on food stamps, imagine what the enlisted troops were having to go thru.

When I was a kid, my father was stationed at Andrews. He had to take a second job to support us, and he was receiving full active duty pay AND flying pay at the time.

Bad pay, bad living conditions, bad medical service isn't anything new to the military. This has been going on for generations.

But thanks for posting the story, tho.

Well, there's an easy answer to those questions:

Sometimes, you do things without thought of pay. If you want to be rich, you sure as hell don't join the military.

You join to serve, protect, for honor, discipline, familiy traditions, any number of values.

This was written by an SF Soldier I know, who can write WAY better than me, but I agree with it entirely:

"There are greater rewards, like every time you look in the mirror and know that you served with honor, that you and other like you stood together to stem the tide of terror and fear while others huddled behind protest signs and clouds of marijuana hurling insults at the very men and women that volunteered to stand between them and a gruesome beheading.

We have forever earned the right to be called a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine and the “reward” being that those men and women can take pride that fact that while some left wing liberal professor or journalist write down our exploits in some slanted fashion we take heart knowing it is these same left wing cowards are the same that if confronted by the same evil men would go out on their knees screaming like a three year old with their hair on fire begging for their lives.

While some read about our exploits, we and only we will be telling our children and grandchildren that it was us that faced the evil men while others read about it. It was us that made history and while history may not remember who wrote it, it does remember who fought, we will not be forgotten, ever."


Make sense? Move out, and draw fire!

Did anyone notice they are talking about the British military? I don't doubt that the American one is much different. I mean, are they??

But the topic of the article is not American

As Jerico said, service men and women definitely serve for different reasons.

For all those people that I know who joined the military simply to get money for a higher education or to try to make more money have more often than not come out of it a few months in hating the service and wanting to leave. They simply have no will to jump in front of gun fire.

What makes a soldier is his/her willing to support their brother or sister in any way shape or form even if it means to die in the process. But at least when they die, they become heroes. We really can't forget who they are and what they do because that would be doing not only a grave injustice to them, but ourselves as well.

This hits home for me specifically because I want to join the Air Force in a few months to do TACP. I do want to join the ROMAD ranks, but I have to weigh in all the downsides. The difficulty of arriving to such a position, the relatively meager pay, the chance that I can't make it even though I believe my will to be strong, and the knowledge that there are people out there who will not appreciate the things I do because they don't know any better.

Ever since I was a kid I wanted to go military, not to make money, but to serve. It'll be tough and I'd hate to think my country would make me go without food, but if they do then I'll make it some how. To me that's no excuse to not try because in the end it only makes me stronger than them.

If I die knowing I tried then that's all that matters. Call me naive and stupid for my beliefs, but it's what I believe and deep down I don't think I'll ever know otherwise until I've been there, done that. Who knows, there's a good chance my beliefs will change, it's all about being human.

De Opresso Libre.

Shattered OUT...

It is a shame we have to read stories like this, about anyone's soldiers. It makes me sick to think of what our governments put these brave people through. I have it rough enough trying to work One forty hour a week job. I am not defending my country, I am playing with kids all day. I don't want to go work my days off just to eat, I would be exhausted. I cannot imagine being a soldier with the mental stress of that job, and then have to take a second job just to eat.

This may be "old' news, but to some posters here, this could be the first time they are hearing about. I note a lot of young posters on here, as a 39 y/o woman I of course have read stories like this before(my ex was in the first gulf war, so I also know how things were for him). But some of our younger members may not be aware of the types of hardships our governments put our soldiers through. I think our young people are our future, and they need to be aware of what kind of things are happening to our soldiers, on personal levels like this story depicts.

My cousin went to Iraq in January 2005. When he left, he had not gotten paid since October 2004. He tried and tried to get the mess straight before he left, but couldn't. The answer was always "You are not in the system , but as soon as you leave we will get right on it and find out what the problem is.".

He called me in April 2005 and told me that his wife and kids were broke and didn't even have food in the house. I asked him if he wanted me to see if I could get something done about it and he said that that wouldn't hurt. I called congressmen, senators and even the white house. He called 3 or 4 days later and said that he didn't know what I did, but he had got a letter from George Bush apologizing for the situation and promising that it would be resolved by his next pay period, and it was.

There was no excuse for something like this happening. He was putting his life on the line and was hit by IED's five times and was refused a Purple Heart and Bronze Star that he deserved.

when i was 19 my mother got real sick and had to be hospitalized. a marine family took me in for a couple of months. me and there son worked construction the dad was a gunny seargent it took his sons and his combined income to pay for his dad and mom and 2 sistersand him.
i helped out of course/ but they were getting foodstamps and handouts called commodities the so called goverment cheese and so forth. there monthly groceries consitstied of mostly ramen noodles and egg sandwhiches . whenever dad got deployed it got worse because marines would take back money out of his pay saying they were feeding him and giving him shelter. both uk and us goverjments suck when it comes to paying service men hell i don't even think royal navy gives out pusser rum rations any more.]

When i was in the military in the 90s, i never went without food but i was single.
The mess halls on the base served all you could eat, anyway you like it food for free.
but trying to live on a budget with a family in the military, i dont think i would of made it, even with the extra pay i was getting.

[edit on 12-5-2008 by Optix]

Yes its true the UK has a voucher system for its soldiers' rations, my brother is a UK minister and confirmed it, but America is not that much better.

We pay better during your time in service but afterwards- lookout. I served 6 years, doing everything from being a Beret to standing watch over the nukes in silos and bombers, and thought my honorable discharge would open doors.

If it weren't for the VA, I'd have been on the streets by now. As is, my healthcare is worse than the proposed universal healthcare, my pension will only pay for my utilities, and I'm on Food Assistance because I only make $800+ a month.

I'm proud to have served, but not proud of the aftermath. I'm classified as Poor in the USA, UK, Canada, and 20 other civilized nations. I don't see Obama bin Laden doing much good for my future either. In fact, I'm so poor I can't even pay attention sometimes.

Now what was the topic again?

The sad truth is that military familys have been on foodstamps and welfare for years. Typical military lifestyles are below the poverty line.
And now I cannot imagine what those familys are going through to survive.
Is it not enough to sacrifice for your country, do you have to have your family humiliated and deprived in the process? And for those who come back broken, the troubles only deepen.