{"id":26605,"date":"2011-09-22T08:12:35","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T12:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=26605"},"modified":"2011-09-22T08:12:35","modified_gmt":"2011-09-22T12:12:35","slug":"als-national-commander-changes-to-military-retirement-will-hurt-national-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=26605","title":{"rendered":"AL’s National Commander: changes to military retirement will hurt national security"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some guy named Mothax posted on American Legion’s The Burn Pit<\/a> yesterday a press release from their new national commander, Fang Wong, stating that the proposed increases to the out-of-pocket expenses for military retirees will negatively impact our national security, making some of the same points I made the other day;<\/p>\n

President Obama told more than 10,000 Legionnaires at our national convention less than a month ago that the budget would not be balanced on the backs of veterans,\u201d Wong said. \u201cMilitary retirees are veterans. And their benefits, including TRICARE medical insurance, cannot be milked to make ends meet. Make no mistake about it. This is an attempt to balance the budget on the backs of veterans. Military retirees are a small target in the middle of a big problem. They should not be asked to forfeit any of their health-care benefits to solve it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wong went on to address proposed changes to the military retirement system;<\/p>\n

These are not ordinary government jobs,\u201d said Wong, a retired U.S. Army chief warrant officer. \u201cThe sacrifices of those who make careers in the Armed Forces include life-threatening combat, long deployments separated from family, multiple transitions from duty station to duty station, and anything else the nation asks. America has the world\u2019s strongest military because good men and women have made commitments to careers in the military knowing they will be rewarded with a decent retirement in the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny commission examining this issue in order to reduce the cost of military retirement will inherently search for ways to reduce the value of the benefit,\u201d Wong added. \u201cThat\u2019s not good for military retirees. Moreover, it\u2019s not good for America\u2019s national security<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is why, after years of avoiding membership in the American Legion, that I finally joined. The last few years, the legion has stepped back from “going along to get along” and they’ve taken a leadership role in fighting for veterans. My week among the delegates and leaders of the Legion in Minneapolis earlier this month has only reinforced my commitment to the organization. These are folks who are truly selflessly committed to the veteran community and i’m proud to count myself in their number.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some guy named Mothax posted on American Legion’s The Burn Pit yesterday a press release from … AL’s National Commander: changes to military retirement will hurt national security<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-veterans-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}