{"id":35903,"date":"2013-05-31T10:26:21","date_gmt":"2013-05-31T14:26:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=35903"},"modified":"2013-05-31T10:26:21","modified_gmt":"2013-05-31T14:26:21","slug":"hagel-warns-on-benefit-cuts-for-retirees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=35903","title":{"rendered":"Hagel warns on benefit cuts for retirees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yeah, like I was told when I opposed Hagel’s appointment to DoD, “he’s one of us” because he was a Republican and a veteran. No, he’s one of “them”. Talking to troops in Hawaii, he warned them that their continued service in the military will not be rewarded by a grateful nation, according to US News and World Report<\/a>;<\/p>\n

The military is considering cutting retirement benefits and charging more for healthcare and prescription drugs, said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel while speaking to troops at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. Hagel is on the island as a part of his tour of the Pacific region, and solicited questions from the audience of troops based there.<\/p>\n

The department’s most recent budget proposal to Congress included increasing copays for prescription medication and fees for Tricare, the military’s health care system.<\/p>\n

“We are reviewing every component of our budget, and we have to look at personnel costs because they represent the biggest part,” he said on Thursday. “We are looking at everything across the board, [such as] entitlement programs, in every way.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I guess they’re not considering that there’s room in the force to reorganize and dump some stars – both officer and enlisted stars. Forcing out those people who have never deployed, have nothing of value to contribute to the future of the military, would save millions. Chasing pipe dreams like “green” weapons systems will remain on the altar of the politically correct, while balancing the budget will remain on the backs of veterans, who know, those of us who served faithfully thinking that our contract with Congress was unalterable. And now that we’ve fulfilled our part of the bargain, the bargain changes.<\/p>\n

New and prospective soldiers see how we’re pawns in the budget cut games and they aren’t stupid. They’ll see no future in their military service and DoD will bleed combat experience while those who have no experience remain because they prayed at the altar. A hollow force would be preferable to what we’re about to see in our military.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yeah, like I was told when I opposed Hagel’s appointment to DoD, “he’s one of us” … Hagel warns on benefit cuts for retirees<\/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":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35903","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=35903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}