{"id":38530,"date":"2013-11-20T15:59:50","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T20:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=38530"},"modified":"2013-11-20T16:09:02","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T21:09:02","slug":"col-tim-connors-wakes-up-from-his-long-sleep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=38530","title":{"rendered":"Col. Tim Connors wakes up from his long sleep"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not sure who this Colonel Tim Connors is, but apparently, he’s been asleep for the last two centuries and thought he had a novel idea when he woke up. Then he made the mistake of posting it up at RealClearDefense<\/a>. Of course, he sees that there is a spending problem with the government, and he starts his little piece OK, talking about how the military isn’t the problem when it comes to our budget problems, that it’s the “entitlement” side of spending that is causing our troubles. But here’s his idea;<\/p>\n

General Dempsey and the Service Chiefs shouldn\u2019t take the case for reduced pay and benefits to the political class in Washington. They should take it to the troops they lead and have led. They should take it to military families past and present. Their message is not difficult to find as we remember the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy\u2019s death: Your country needs you to set aside your personal interests, to take one more hill and to show everyone else the way. <\/p>\n

If these leaders ask, we will bear the burden. We always have and always will. And the story of our sacrifice in this instance would be very powerful indeed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How noble that he says “We” like he’s one of the people who will actually be burdened. Col. Connors is a Reservist, a reservist in Staten island’s 353rd Civil Affairs Command, and probably has another job besides being in uniform. He’s a colonel, so how much will he actually lose when pay and benefits are cut or altered or whatever they plan on doing. His retirement benefits are already set. <\/p>\n

And, oh, by the way, after every war, it’s the troops who are cut to the bone – it’s how Bill Clinton balanced his year-over-year budget in the 90s. Did Col. Connors see the rest of the country follow the troops’ example? No, because obviously, he was sleeping through it. Did Col. Connors watch the troops deploy to the war on terror without equipment and training they needed. No, because obviously, he was sleeping.<\/p>\n

Yes, it was very noble of Col. Connors to offer up the benefits and pay of people who haven’t joined the service yet. When I was in the service and saw the cuts coming in the 90s I said that if everyone sacrificed like the troops would, that would be dandy. But remember the battle the Republican Congress had trying to reform welfare? The only reason Clinton finally signed it was because he needed to keep just one of his campaign promises from 1992 to win the election in 1996. <\/p>\n

Aside from cutting training funds for the troops, he cut personnel to the bone and then deployed the shit out of them for meals on wheels programs. I don’t think that the entire 10th Mountain Division was all together on Fort Drum the whole decade. He moved military retirees over 65 from Tricare to Medicare. They got a pittance for pay raises. Equipment fell apart and they cannibalized what was left for parts.<\/p>\n

No, the troops don’t need to lead this time. Let Congress make the tough decisions for a change instead of stripping national security and setting up our future forces for a bloody nose on first contact.Thanks to Chockblock for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not sure who this Colonel Tim Connors is, but apparently, he’s been asleep for the … Col. Tim Connors wakes up from his long sleep<\/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":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dumbass-bullshit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38530","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=38530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}