Our military is saved…for now. At the last minute, Congressional members sacrificed their values and came to some sort of agreement to keep the government from “shutting down.” In the process, the agreement will reportedly cut a whopping $33 billion out of the budget! The projected budget deficit (ie: the amount we will ADD to the national debt and no including interest) for 2012 is $1.6 trillion. The cuts that Rep. Boehner agreed to equal just 2% OF THE BUDGET’S DEFICIT. It is only .88% of ENTIRE BUDGET of $3.73 trillion proposed by the Obama Administration for 2012. In other words, it’s NOTHING and Congress ignored the mandate that was given to them by the American people during the last election. Selling their souls for .88% reduction in budget is not worth a one week extension. In the week it took to approve the resolution cutting $33 billion from the budget, our debt jumped $54 billion!! That alone should tell you how useless this was.
What does this have to do with the military? Everything.
Our troops are frustrated and confused. Our mid-month pay is now safe, but what about the next one? We simply don’t know. Congress could have already fixed that, but they wanted to play politics with our troops. They could have submitted a separate bill that solely funded our military through the rest of the fiscal year while they continued to fight for what was important – a fiscally responsible government living within its means. Instead, our leaders did what Americans having been complaining about for years – what resulted in the major change in the political landscape in 2010. They attached political riders to the “troop funding bill,” like defunding Planned Parenthood. I don’t really care if that’s a good idea or not, it has NOTHING to do with the military!! So, the bills disappeared because of veto threats lack of support in the other chambers.
All this uncertainty and lack of budget is hurting our troops. It’s affecting our training and day to day operations. It’s stressing out our families who are worried whether or not they will be able to provide food for their families, put gas in their cars, or pay their rent/mortgages. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there are a LOT of people in the same boat. I would posit: are they putting their lives on the line and getting shot at on a daily basis? Are being forced to leave their families for months and years at a time? There is a fundamental difference between the suffering of our troops and the suffering of the rest of America. That doesn’t make us better than everyone else by any means. It just makes us a little different.
Because of this uncertainty, training is being delayed and/or cancelled. Our units can’t afford to fund it. Training that is supposed to take place outside of the continuing resolution timelines can’t be approved. When these little extensions are finally approved, our troops and leaders are required to jump through hoops to get the training back on track. Leaders aren’t sure if their troops will be TDY or present for duty. We have Soldiers that need mandatory training to deploy and simply aren’t getting it.
Because of the unknowns of budgets, units don’t enough money to purchase tough boxes to ship our gear in. Units don’t have slings for their weapons.
This is not the way to run a country. This is not the way to manage a military, especially during ongoing combat operations.
Our troops are resilient and flexible. We will accomplish every mission given to us. With our without the proper training, our troops will fight and win our nation’s battles. That is undoubtable. Our will and desire to “make it happen” far outweigh any obstacles put in our place. However, because of those obstacles, our military to forced to “make it happen” in a much more stressful environment than we should have to deal with.
— approximately half of their normal mid-month payment. Active duty military and on-duty reservists cannot be paid for duty performed after the CRA expired, until additional legislation is enacted. Once another CRA or an appropriations act is signed into law, normal disbursement of pay will resume for pay earned after employees return to work. Military members who perform duty during the shutdown will be entitled to retroactive payments. 
