David Reed: Military entitlements

This morning finally did it. On opening the Camera OpenForum Page I  typically  find the usual litany of breast-beating about multiple problems requiring our attention from the debt ceiling to prairie-dog relocation, but accompanying suggested solutions? Well, no… I remember my dad saying, “No fair complaining unless you have an idea for fixing the problem.”

So let’s for once address a big one straight on – the military – an entitlement institution that we the people seem terrified to suggest should pay part of the burden of decreased services along with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. But allow me to interject: – as an ex-military fighter-pilot myself I am hardly a left-leaning liberal, but forget for the moment our supposed need to fight three simultaneous wars, how about this observation? A youngster can enlist at age eighteen, spend twenty years in the armed forces, never fire a shot at anyone or be shot at, then retire on half-pay, government – financed health insurance, and government-subsidized shopping – at age thirty-eight for possibly the next fifty years!

I highly approve of taxpayers supporting these benefits to any armed service member who has risked their life in combat to (say) the level of the Army’s Combat Infantryman Badge or an equivalent. However should we the taxpayer finance these sorts of exceptional benefits to anyone who has never put their life on the line against an enemy? I would say unequivocally NO!

Why are we the people so afraid to demand our politicians (whom WE elected to represent US after all) address this issue as a start to ALL of us sharing the burden of reducing arguably excessive entitlements?

David Reed M.D., J.D.
Boulder