← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Ragnar
Thread ID: 9048 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2003-08-15
2003-08-15 05:14 | User Profile
Troops in Iraq face pay cut
[url=http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0803/14paycut.html]http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0803/...3/14paycut.html[/url]
By EDWARD EPSTEIN San Francisco Chronicle
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon wants to cut the pay of its 148,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, who are already contending with guerrilla-style attacks, homesickness and 120-degree-plus heat.
Unless Congress and President Bush take quick action when Congress returns after Labor Day, the uniformed Americans in Iraq and the 9,000 in Afghanistan will lose a pay increase approved last April of $75 a month in "imminent danger pay" and $150 a month in "family separation allowances."
The Defense Department supports the cuts, saying its budget can't sustain the higher payments amid a host of other priorities. But the proposed cuts have stirred anger among military families and veterans' groups and even prompted an editorial attack in the Army Times, a weekly newspaper for military personnel and their families that is seldom so outspoken.
Congress made the April pay increases retroactive to Oct. 1, 2002, but they are set to expire when the federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30 unless Congress votes to keep them as part of its annual defense appropriations legislation.
Imminent danger pay, given to Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force members in combat zones, was raised to $225 from $150 a month. The family separation allowance, which goes to help military families pay rent, child care or other expenses while soldiers are away, was raised from $100 a month to $250.
Last month, the Pentagon sent Congress an interim budget report saying the extra $225 monthly for the two pay categories was costing about $25 million more a month, or $300 million for a full year. In its "appeals package" laying out its requests for cuts in pending congressional spending legislation, Pentagon officials recommended returning to the old, lower rates of special pay and said military experts would study the question of combat pay in coming months.
A White House spokesman referred questions about the administration's view on the pay cut to the Pentagon report.
Military families have started hearing about the looming pay reductions, and many aren't happy.
They say duty in Iraq is dangerous -- 57 Americans have died in combat-related incidents since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq on May 1. Another 69 have been killed by disease, the heat or in accidents.
"Every person they see is a threat. They have no idea who is an enemy or who is a friend," said Larry Syverson, 54, of Richmond, Va., whose two sons, Brandon, 31, and Bryce, 25, are serving in Iraq. Syverson appeared with other military families at a Washington, D.C., news conference to publicize efforts to bring the troops home.
"You can get shot in the head when you go to buy a Coke," added Syverson, referring to an incident at a Baghdad University cafeteria on July 6 when an Army sergeant was shot and killed after buying a soda.
Susan Schuman of Shelburne Falls, Mass., said her son, Army National Guard Sgt. Justin Schuman, had told her "it's really scary" serving in Samarra, a town about 20 miles from Saddam Hussein's ancestral hometown of Tikrit.
Schuman, who like Syverson has become active in a group of military families that want service personnel pulled out of Iraq, said the pay cut possibility didn't surprise her.
"It's all part of the lie of the Bush administration, that they say they support our troops," she said.
It's rare for the independent Army Times, which is distributed widely among Army personnel, to blast the Pentagon, the White House and the Congress. But in this instance, the paper has said in recent editorials that Congress was wrong to make the pay raises temporary, and the Pentagon is wrong to call for a rollback.
"The bottom line: If the Bush administration felt in April that conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan warranted increases in danger pay and family separation allowances, it cannot plausibly argue that the higher rates are not still warranted today," the paper said in an editorial in its current edition.
On Capitol Hill, members say the issue will be taken up quickly after the summer recess when a conference committee meets to negotiate conflicting versions of the $369 billion defense appropriations bill.
"You can't put a price tag on their service and sacrifice, but one of the priorities of this bill has got to be ensuring our servicemen and women in imminent danger are compensated for it," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
"Since President Bush declared 'mission accomplished' on May 1, 126 American soldiers have died in Iraq, and we are losing more every day," Tauscher said. "If that's not imminent danger, I don't know what is."
The Senate bill calls for making permanent the increases in combat pay -- the first in more than a decade -- for service in Iraq and Afghanistan. The House wants to pay more for service in those two countries than for such duties as peacekeeping in the Balkans. With the money saved, the House wants to increase the size of the active military by 6,200 troops.
What won't be clear until Congress returns is whether the Pentagon will lobby against keeping the increase.
The Pentagon reiterated Wednesday that its goal was for service personnel to rotate out of Iraq after a maximum of a year in that country. Units of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, which played a major role in last March's invasion, have already come home.
2003-08-15 15:24 | User Profile
I really hate to say this....but.....it's hard to feel much sympathy. And I really do support the troops like anyone. But didn't they volunteer for this?
So many of them are pro-Bush lemmings. They say they do it for pride, not for money . And I respect that. So I don't think they should complain about pay cuts, b/c the rest of the country is taking pay cuts too. Many (17%) don't even have jobs in the 1st place.
-Jay
2003-08-15 15:47 | User Profile
[url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/15/PAY.TMP]Pentagon reverses course, won't cut troops' pay[/url]
2003-08-15 18:42 | User Profile
Ragnar (Posted on Aug 15 2003, 06:14)> ** Troops in Iraq face pay cut
By EDWARD EPSTEIN San Francisco Chronicle
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon wants to cut the pay of its 148,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, who are already contending with guerrilla-style attacks, homesickness and 120-degree-plus heat.
Unless Congress and President Bush take quick action when Congress returns after Labor Day, the uniformed Americans in Iraq and the 9,000 in Afghanistan will lose a pay increase approved last April of $75 a month in "imminent danger pay" and $150 a month in "family separation allowances."
The Defense Department supports the cuts, saying its budget can't sustain the higher payments amid a host of other priorities. But the proposed cuts have stirred anger among military families and veterans' groups and even prompted an editorial attack in the Army Times, a weekly newspaper for military personnel and their families that is seldom so outspoken.** In Vietnam the commonwealth of Pennsylvania taxed my combat pay. Later I discovered my state government found money to purchase war bonds from Israel, perhaps even from my taxes. Some things do not change.
jay (Posted on Aug 15 2003, 16:24)> I really hate to say this....but.....it's hard to feel much sympathy. And I really do support the troops like anyone. [color=red]But didn't they volunteer for this?[/color][color=blue] So many of them are pro-Bush lemmings.[/color] They say they do it for pride, not for money . And I respect that. So I don't think they should complain about [color=red]pay cuts[/color], b/c the rest of the country is taking pay cuts too. Many (17%) don't even have jobs in the 1st place. There is nobody on this forum who consistently sees things almost exclusively in money terms as Jay. Previously I asked him to read Adam Smith to grasp the master's interpretation on the need for a solid ethical basis on which to build capitalism. Our current business and political leadership virtually have no sense of ethics or morals.
Some soldiers did volunteer for combat, but the motivations are unclear as they are for most young men. Getting shot at for days on end will take the glamor out of any urge to do good or save the world. Jay writes with what many on this forum feel is their right to feel morally superior because virtue is on their side. For such little money the soldiers receive I do not think they should have to tolerate pay cuts when money is going to much less worthwhile people and things.
Perhaps even Jay could forgo his plans to build a business empire for a few years and serve his country in uniform and find out what it is like to be regarded as a tool for gutless slobs as Jorge, Cheney and Bill Clinton. Such experience will stand a lifetime of memories.
2003-08-15 18:50 | User Profile
**There is nobody on this forum who consistently sees things almost exclusively in money terms as Jay. **
Agreed. I do see things economically, that's my nature. Money is neutral - it's black and white. Unlike history, art, politics, etc which are so subjective.
I asked him to read Adam Smith to grasp the master's interpretation on the need for a solid ethical basis on which to build capitalism. Our current business and political leadership virtually have no sense of ethics or morals.
And I agree with you here, too. I'm not an unethical person. I don't screw people over, and do not put the dollar above my heritage. I'd never accept high profits for a disgusting, immoral and unChristian nation.
**Perhaps even Jay could forgo his plans to build a business empire for a few years and serve his country in uniform **
Before I came over to "Paleo-Con" a few years back, I would have done so. But now I see things much clearer (I think). Our soldiers are generally excellent people. They are used, however, by evil people. That's not right, and I would not subject myself to that.
I'm the 1st in 5 generations of American men in my lineage to not serve in war. I'm both happy and sad about that.
-Jay