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Soldiers deserve to keep benefits
Military spouse
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Military retirement as we know it may be facing an uncertain future.
It’s true that no official decisions have been made to move forward with the drastic changes to military retirement. It’s also true that during his consideration of retirement reform, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta urged that current military members should be grandfathered into the current retirement program, and the reformed retirement program should be introduced solely to new military personnel.
I say it’s all a load of garbage. Soldiers have sacrificed time with their families, undergone surgeries to cope with injuries procured in their military service and experienced extreme trauma that’s left them with mental problems they just can’t seem to outrun. That’s the high price we, as American citizens, ask our military to pay for us. In return, after at least 20 years of this sacrificial service, they are granted an early retirement. To be honest, receiving half your salaried pay in exchange for a battered body, mind and family life seems a little uneven to me.
And now in the face of financial crisis, we turn to our military and again ask that it be the one willing to make the sacrifice for the rest of America. This time, I say it’s gone too far.
The new retirement plan would replace the current plan with a 401k-style retirement. It also would mean that full-time military retirees would not receive their retirement pay until, from what I could find, age 60.
I don’t know about you, but I’m fed up with the ungrateful attitude our government seems to have toward our military. Even with this political promise of “grandfathering,” it seems ignorant of the government to believe that the new members of the military will sacrifice any less than what our current military does now.
The soldiers serving here have earned their benefits and even saying that this option “must be considered” is insulting, not just to a military spouse, but to an American citizen.

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