Promises kept
I think it was 1979 or 1980 when a rigger at Fort Bragg went nuts and cut some static lines (the thin strap that pulls your parachute out when you jump) and three paratroopers one captain was killed on a training jump on Sicily Drop Zone. The Army quit jumping for a week or two while every chute in the inventory was repacked. The they loaded us all up and jumped us again…something about falling off a horse or something. No one refused to jump.
I remember a time at the National Training Center in California, a squad leader was shot in the back during a live fire training exercise. The medics hauled him off to the hospital and the exercise continued.
There was a jump into Fort McClellan, AL when a newbie got tangled up in a 5-tour Vietnam veteran 1st Sergeant. The newbie released his WICI bag (about 150 pounds of squad equipment) so that the 1st sergeant hit the ground at whatever velocity a 200-pound man hits the ground in a hundred-plus foot free fall, the 160 pound private landed on top of him and the WICI bag landed on top of both of them. Both men broke their backs and were hauled off the drop zone into their civilian lives as cripples. Five days later we all jumped back into Taylor Creek DZ on Fort Stewart, GA with no one refusing to jump.
I’ve watched 26 ton Bradleys sink into Texas lakes and rivers with a 10-man crew aboard and they all surfaced, ready to go test the next POS equipment the Army handed them. I watched a Bradley roll over a thirty-foot cliff and the crew emerge a little dizzy but thoroughly entertained.
The Army wanted to see what jumping with an M60 machine gun fully assembled would do to a man. So they had my buddy jump with one – he went into the civilian world a cripple.
And, oh, eight Marines and two sailors were injured in an explosion at Fort Bragg yesterday.
That was just training – it was just us doing what we did everyday because the Army told us to do it.
And now the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is bending over backwards to raise our Tricare premiums – ya know, the premiums that we pay for our free health care.
Yeah, well, fuck you very much.
ADDED: DaveO asked about casualties during relative peace and I found this at history,navy.mil.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Veterans Issues
Your last line sums it up perfectly.
I totally didn’t see where you were going with that. But, well put.
Maybe if we could get Mr. Gates to drive a Bradley off into a Texas lake, he’d emerge with a different point of view.
Or we’d get a new Secretary of Defense. Seems like a win – win situation either way…
#3PN, like
$2.50 a month for individuals and $5 a month for families.
That doesnt seem that unreasonable. With costs across the board going up, care getting more advanced and costing more to treat things that maybe 10 years ago would kill you without any way to stop it.
60 bucks more a year for a family…yea, it seems like youre getting overly excited over a very small amount of money.
I was in the ops shack when a dust-off call came in because someone got too close to the vehicle he was ground guiding and his head wasn’t able to stop a M113 being back into a parking spot. No more needs to be said about that.
Yeah, Woody, you sound like the lobster in the pot who said “Oh, 100 degrees doesn’t feel so bad”.
“…a little dizzy but thoroughly entertained.” Sure you weren’t an FO in a previous life?
Recall in the early 1990s Fort Campbell lost some of its battalion commanders, including one killed during a live-fire.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t the services averaging about 2,000 killed per year in the 80s and 90s?
DaveO: Yeah, it’s something like that. You trained like you were at war, which meant there were going to be mishaps, no matter how safe you tried to make it.
In an 18-month period starting in December ’77, my wing lost 3 aircraft with all aboard. 32 men, I believe. The Navy Times’ “Sea Service Obituaries” used to run at least 2 dozen names per month in the 70’s and 80’s.
I remember the flag at Oceania being at half mast more often than not in the mid ’80’s for flight crews killed. Let’s not forget the 101st at Gander, and the multiple 5T rollovers when they were first introduced. I also remember a MEDEVAC call for a HUMMWV rollover when I was at Benning. The outcome was what would be expected when a heavy vehicle ends up on top of an ejected soldier.
Thanks Jonn, for the link.
#9 OT,
True, but the other big killers were non-training accidents and suicide. By the late 90s, losing a joe to an automobile accident or suicide was considered a career-ender for a battery commander and 1SG.
I don’t see where paying 260 a year for health care is such a back breaker. Yes, the military promised they would take care of you, but things change. To sit and believe that the govt won’t change things seems a bit short sighted. Yes, they promised health care forever, and yes they’ve gone back on their word, but less then $0.72 a day for care seems like a sweetheart deal still, considering the regular population pays more then that a month. There’s battles to fight, and when we want to see cuts made by everyone, we have to allow it on our side as well.
The big difference I see is that one is a contractual obligation, whereas the ones you mention are not.
If I contracted with you to buy wood, and then 2 months later said times are tough, I am paying you 10% less, you’d be up in arms, rightfully. When folks joined they were promised something, now they are told they will pay for it. the $.72 is rather aside the issue. If they can raise it to 72 cents without putting up a fight, why not $4.75?
Also, note that if your employer told you you could get the same salary but have to work 80 hours a week, you could quit. But, if they suddenly came back after you had worked and said we are only paying you X, you would have no option to un-work as it were. So it is with military service. Can’t very well go back. Even if you are still in, you’ve already invested in a benefit you had “negotiated” for.
And looking at it from the civilian side of the house…
If my employer tried to tell me to go out and get shot at as part of my job, I would laugh at him — on my way out the door to find another job!!
THE LEAST WE CAN DO FOR OUR VETS is cover their medical expenses. While they’re on active duty AND afterwards.
How much is the life of a man worth who offered to lay it down for you????
PRICELESS.
How can any government, of any party or ideology, effectively rule/manage the nation, when it will not meet its contractual obligations?
Last time I checked, we’d given King George III a swift kick in the tuckus. He, and Parliament, were rather quick to change the deal. And our ancestors prayed they wouldn’t alter it further. In the king’s defense, he was mad as a hatter.
Back in the 1770s, the UK needed hard cash quick to pay for the many wars, big and little, that cropped up as a matter of course in building their empire, and in maintaining the balance of power in Europe. Parliament responded accordingly, taxing everything it could get away with (and using bayonets to extract taxes where the people said no).
How is today all that different from 1773 in terms of the integrity of governance?
Yeah. Also, I’d like to add that I’m sick of all the civilians whining about “where’s the shared sacrifice” from the veterans and retirees. You know what? There was no shared sacrifice. If there was shared sacrifice, I wouldn’t have buddies on their fifth deployment. The veterans are the ones already making all the sacrifices people don’t feel like making. We deserve the care we were promised.
You cant scream that the military is a volunteer force in one breath, and then scream about how there is no shared sacrifice and your friends are going back for their 5th deployment.
They volunteered, they signed up and resigned up knowing what this current optempo would bring.
Wow…is it easy to see both sides of this argument. As someone who was “promised free health care for life” if I reenlisted and spent 20 years in, I would say….you guys made this promise, live up to it. But, it turned out that in no contract of reenlistment did it state…”Free health care for life”. It was all lies. I was offerred a 6 month drop and took it. I wanted to move on. I was a citizen soldier that served with pride. There were no TAP programs…no VA people there to explain benefits…nobody to tell me that since I was on “Permenant Profile” after being wounded I would have been medically retired in a few months to a year or two. So, they said…give him a drop…see if he’ll take it. I did because I and I’d say 98% of my fellow citizen soldiers didn’t know any better. (Jax will want proof of my percentage…I don’t have it.) I would also say that that same majority didn’t have a clue about our benefits with the VA. We knew about 2 things…G.I. Loan and our 175 a month for the GI Bill. That’s it. So what is it I’m trying to say. VTWoody makes a point that it’s just cents a day…and a good one. But others say…you promised this and now say that… I’ve always hated liars and theives….I think to renig on promises is both lying and theivery whether it’s a volunteer military or the one I served in. Getting vasoline only makes it hurt less but you’re getting it in the ass, just the same.
Honor and Courage
As with any form of tax, once the government gets it’s foot in the door, over time they’ll want more, and more, and more, and more … basically because politicians LOVE to spend other peoples money – especially if it will get them reelected.
Hasn’t DoD already cut or cut-back weapon systems? I’m against a copay on general principles, for the previously stated reason.
I wouldn’t give Gates the time of day.
Its always funny how the DoD is the only cabinent level department publicly laying out plans to reduce costs and spending.
Do you see the Department of Education doing that? Energy? Interior? HHS? Fuck no.
So, it’s only a contract when the signee honors his part of the contract. It’s “shared sacrifice” when the government goes back on it’s part of the contract? Sounds like the typical shaft. BOHICA, and no lube, either.
#22 O.D.
Nope. And IMO, we could disband all four of those and not only not miss them, but very probably do much better in the long run without them.
People wanna know why our kids are at the bottom of the list academically for the industrialized nations. Home6 is a 4th grade teacher, I’ve had a ring side seat. By far, it’s Education’s bureaucratic paperwork that’s drowning the system in stupidity – in triplicate, please. There are some other issues, parenting being the next most critical, IMO, but the Department of Education is the six hundred pound gorilla in the room.
As far as the point that it’s just, “a few cents a day,” look at what’s happened with another bunch of thieves on your list: Interior.
I used to think that setting some forest aside for future generations was a good idea. It probably still is a good idea, but look at the steady train of abuses and usurpations the Bureau of Land Management has perpetrated on the states over the last thirty years or more. I’m talking about the vast tracts of land confiscated by BLM, in cahoots with Congress. Anyone doubting this needs to look at a BLM map of the USA. How little of it is in the hands of private citizens.
Like I said, they ALWAYS come back for more.
VTWoody:
Yes, I believe in an all-volunteer force, BUT, if the people of this country actually believed in shared sacrifice, recruiters would be beating people back from the doors or they’d have ended the war already. They would either be in or out. Instead they complain about things but don’t do anything about them.
Good observation, OD.
Stupidity on Stilts.
Even us blue water guys who never got shot at still spent the better part of twenty years just plain gone on deployments, ops, training, blah blah blah.
It’s not really “shared sacrifice” when the only ones who are supposed to sacrifice are ones who already did.
P.S. I am just waiting for the pennywise/pound foolish retards to revive the idea of “reforming” the military retirement system.
VTWoody, are you serious about your positions on increasing the payments or am I missing the sarcasm?
Were the increase in money to directly cause an equal increase in the quality of care, that’d be a deal.
But it isn’t, and that’d be a steal.
VTWoody, you’re right about one thing: those of us on TRICARE are getting a great deal, compared to folks who did not retire from the mil.
I freely admit that, but that is not the issue.
But to imply there should be more of an attitude of “shared sacrifice” on the .mil’s side, driven by the current economic situation our nation faces, is off base.
There is no “shared sacrifice” between the .civ world and our world because unlike their parents and/or grandparents during WW2, the current .civ population hasn’t sacrificed jack shit in this current conflict, EXCEPT for those who have suffered lost or wounded sons, daughters, or other relatives on or since 9/11.
As someone else once noted: “America is not at war; America is at the mall…the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force are at war”.
The increased fee’s are the camel’s nose in the tent.
Taking away tricare an replacing it with something worse is the whole camel.
NM tried this. Turned the state’s medicaid over to an HMO thinking they would cut costs. Costs went up instead. Increase fees don’t make us get younger, have fewer kids or get hurt less.
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