Whatever will we do with only a 1.4% raise!! Woe is us!!

If you're on any social networking site, and have logged in within the past week, you've seen a page full of posts that look like this:

"President Obama has proposed a 1.4% pay increase for active duty military in 2011. This is THE LOWEST SINCE 1973! Nice to know that during a time of rampant inflation, while war is fought in 2 theatres, our men and women in uniform get A LOWER PAY INCREASE THAN WELFARE RECIPIENTS. Please repost if you support our troops!"

That is a direct copy and paste off my live feed. Literally half of it looks like that. Half. OK, I know, consider the source. Most of my contacts are military-affiliated, but even some of the civvies are posting this thing, so I'm pretty sure there's nobody on the planet who hasn't seen this yet.

OK, so 1.4% is a rather small pay increase compared to what we're used to, but when you consider that our economy is in the toilet, and government expenditures absolutely have to be cut in order to bring it back, it was only a matter of time before the military had to bear some of the brunt of it. Frankly, I wonder why they haven't cut MORE of the pork from the defense budget, and kept it only to a small pay raise. They still plan on raising the housing allowance (which is necessary in many places since landlords love to gouge military people on rent everywhere I've been), and I don't know what they're going to do with the food allowance, but I don't see it decreasing. Annual clothing allowances for female enlisted soldiers decreased, but only by like $40, and out of the about $600 that the allowance is these days, that's certainly not a very big deal on an individual level, but will make a big difference when added up.

I think a lot of the garbage they spend money on really needs to go. They implement these new family programs every year which are so unnecessary, and most people don't even use, yet they cost millions of dollars to run. Why on earth would they keep making these useless things? Sure, study after study shows that the families who have dealt with more than two deployments in rapid succession are facing the biggest issues (Shocker.) but the solution to that is NOT to start up ten more stupid programs. How about a REAL solution? There is one, and it's easy. Keep the word of the lawmakers who have been saying for years that they are going to find and deploy soldiers with no deployments, short tours, or a long time at home between deployments, and rotate the people who have been spending every other year deployed for the past half decade or so to non or less frequently deployed assignments. This is not only far cheaper than starting a bunch of idiotic social programs, but it is a real solution, not a bandaid.

Let me tell you, as the wife of a 3-tour OIF vet, and a member of the type of family the researchers seem to love to study these days, the LAST thing I'm going to do when things get difficult during a deployment is run down to the Army Community Services and let some civilians whose husbands have never deployed tell me how to live my life, and spout the same old platitudes about how we have to live for this thing that's bigger than ourselves. (Why yes, the government fatcats and their dirty agendas ARE bigger than me... Please tell me why I'm supposed to live for that.) The Army family programs are AWFUL, and honestly, they should be cut by at least 50% to start, and more each year thereafter, not increased every year. If you've got housing, a commissary, a PX, a few things to do (on-post bowling alley and movies, parks, running trails, etc), and the phone number for the unit's rear-detachment and FRG, then that is ALL you need. What's more, most of that stuff is practically free because it utilizes existing facilities, and people pay for most of the things (activities, groceries, goods, services), so the agencies at least break even, and in the case of AAFES, can fund other agencies like MWR. (So basically, what this means is that the PX funds the bowling alley, etc.)

It is possible to run an Army on a drastically reduced budget, and that's what needs to happen. I am in favor of the smaller pay raise, and would like to see the majority of family programs cut in order to decrease defense spending. I would also like to see them settle on one camouflage pattern that they will use for 20 years or so. There's a lot of pork in the defense budget, and it needs to be trimmed. It's not going to be comfortable, but that's the way it is.

Military dependents are the most ungrateful people alive. I've been consistently disappointed in all but maybe half a dozen that I've met over the past six years. They seem to think that they should get all this money when the rest of the nation is scrimping and pinching just to make ends meet. Why on earth should that be? Isn't it enough that the pay is still steady, promotions are still happening, and still carry raises, housing allowance still increases in response to cost of living, and you can still get free medical through the craptastic military hospital if a 20% copay on Standard (FREE insurance!) is too much for you?

During the height of the recession, when others were losing jobs left and right, and billion dollar corporations were crumbling daily, our household income increased by 30%. Granted, there was a promotion, and a HUGE housing allowance increase that figured into it, but the fact is, that ONLY happened in the military that year. While our civilian counterparts were arriving at work to barrages of pink slips, Thak scrambled for promotion points, and pinned (er... velcroed?) on a nearly unattainable rank for his job. I never once had to worry about how I'd feed us, or if my bank card would be declined at the commissary. When a lot of people were losing their houses, and downsizing drastically, we moved from a 2 BR apartment to a 4 BR house in a great neighborhood. Granted, my husband is better than most at this Army thing (there's a difference between "good at it" and "meant to do it forever") but the universal fact is that the military did not feel the recession beyond the gas pump, and even then, a lot of people just bought motorcycles, and avoided the gas gouging that way. They had the means to do that.

So military people, take your own advice and suck it up! 1.4% is still a raise, and you still have a job. Be realistic about the world's situation, and realize that just volunteering to put on a uniform does not make you (or more likely your husband) a saint worthy of the lion's share of everything. You love to talk about sacrifice, and how much you give for your country, but when it comes down to actually feeling a little bit of the necessary pinch in order to begin healing our broken economy, you can't say a single good thing about it. Where's your sense of duty and patriotism now, military wife, lower-enlisted soldier... scrappy old NCO? Where'd it go? Sure, it's easy to be patriotic when it comes with a giant tax-free (during deployments) paycheck that just gets fatter every year, but when it counts, it seems you're all talk.