My Letter To Senator Webb (D-Va) Concerning The Proposed Cuts To Military And Veterans' Benefits.

I ask that you contact your elected officials concerning these proposed cuts.  Our service members and veterans deserve only the very best!

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

____________________________________________________________________________________

FROM THE DESK OF AARON D. YEARGAN

aaron.yeargan@gmail.com

November 25, 2010

The Hon. James Webb
United States Senate
144 Russell Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510.

Subject: The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform's Proposed Cuts to Military and Veterans' Benefits.

Dear Mr. Senator:

Good afternoon Sir. I hope this letter finds you doing well and having a happy Thanksgiving. I wanted to take some time and write to you concerning your recent statements on the military and defense budget and the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform's proposed cuts to military and veterans' benefits.  I am a fellow Democrat and a 28 year old husband, father and college student.  I am pursuing my degree in Nursing with the goal of eventually becoming a Mental Health Nurse Practitioner so that I can better help our service members and veterans.  I am also a former Marine and four-tour Iraq War veteran.  Currently, I am serving as a medic in the Army Reserve.  With all of that being said, as a libertarian minded Democrat, I applaud the President for forming this commission in order to get rid of wasteful spending and unnecessary programs.  I also applaud your honest assessment of possible hard choices facing the Department of Defense and Veterans Administration concerning their budget and benefit programs.  I truly believe there are numerous wastful, unecesary programs that can and should be cut in order to reduce the deficit and ease the burden placed on taxpayers.  However, a cut in military personell strength and benefits is not the answer.  

As you know, some of the proposed cuts include a basic pay and housing allowance freeze, a reduction in the Cost of Living Allowance, elimination of the 20 year military retirement and/or postponement until the age of 60 for actual retirement pension payments, as well as an increase in TRICARE premiums and co-pays.  As a husband and father of a 20 month old son, my wife and I benefit greatly from our access to TRICARE health insurance.  

While trying to fight two wars, as well as defend against and remain vigilant of numerous other threats around the world, proposing cuts to troop strength and military and veteran benefits is incomprehensible to me.  Not only is a high personnel level necessary for an adequate defense, allowing people to join and stay in the military helps combat unemployment.  Cutting benefits would leave many service members without an incentive to remain in the military, and frankly, it angers me and feels like a slap in the face.  It sends the message that the very people that rely on and expect our service think us undeserving of a rightly earned salary and benefits.  To lump us in with and think of the services that we provide in the same way that one may view those of civilian government agencies and employees is disrespectful.

Mr. Senator, I believe that you are an American hero, and I am very thankful for your service to our country.  If anyone knows the sacrifices made daily by our military and their families, it's you.  Just as you have done for so many years, I ask that you keep fighting for our men and women in uniform.  We can never fully repay the debt of gratitude we owe to the brave men and women who serve our country, but we must always try. We must respect and honor that service by providing them with the best possible pay, benefits, and health care.

In closing, I ask that, as a fellow veteran, a United States Senator and member of the Senate Armed Services and Veterans' Affairs Committees, that you never support or vote to approve any cuts to troop strength levels or military and veterans benefits.  Thank you for your time, and please feel free to contact me regarding this letter.  I hope to hear from you soon.  Semper Fidelis.

Respectfully,

Aaron D. Yeargan      

CC:  The Office of the President

        The Office of the Vice President

        The Office of the Senate Majority Leader

        The Office of the Senate Minority Leader

        The Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives

        The Office of the House Minority Leader

        The Senate Armed Services Committee

        The Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee

        The Senate Appropriations Committee

        The House Armed Services Committee

        The House Veterans' Affairs Committee

        The House Appropriations Committee

        The Office of the Secretary of Defense

        The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)

        The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness

        The Office of the Secretary of Veterans' Affairs

        The Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

        The Office of the Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

        The Office of the Commandant of the Marine Corps

        The Office of the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps

        The Office of the Chief of Staff of the Army

        The Office of the Command Sergeant Major of the Army

        The Office of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force

        The Office of the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force

        The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations

        The Office of the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy

        The Office of the Commandant of the Coast Guard

        The Office of the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard

        The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform

        Mr. Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

        The Hon. Kay Hagan (D-NC)

        The Hon. Richard Burr (R-NC)

President Obama's Thanksgiving Message To The Troops.

FYI -

http://www.democrats.org/news/blog/1144

-ADY "A Regular Guy On The Issues"

Defending Defense: A Response to Recent Deficit Reduction Proposals | Foreign Policy Initiative

FYI -

Defending Defense: A Response to Recent Deficit Reduction Proposals | Foreign Policy Initiative

-ADY"A Regular Guy On The Issues"

Rep. Ron Paul: "Support the Troops by Ending the War."

Support the Troops by Ending the War

by Rep. Ron Paul

I have never met anyone who did not support our troops. Sometimes, however, we hear accusations that someone or some group does not support the men and women serving in our armed forces. This is pure demagoguery, and it's intellectually dishonest. The accusers play on emotions to gain support for controversial policies, implying that those who disagree are unpatriotic. But keeping our troops out of harm's way, especially when war is unnecessary, is never unpatriotic. There's no better way to support the troops. Since we now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and was not threatening anyone, we must come to terms with 3,000 American deaths and 23,000 American casualties. It's disconcerting that those who never believed the justifications given for our invasion, and who now want the war ended, are still accused of not supporting the troops! This is strange indeed! Instead of questioning who has the best interests of our troops at heart, we should be debating which policy is best for our country. Defensive wars to preserve our liberties, fought only with proper congressional declarations, are legitimate. Casualties under such circumstances still are heartbreaking, but they are understandable. Casualties that occur in undeclared, unnecessary wars, however, are bewildering. Why must so many Americans be killed or hurt in Iraq when our security and our liberty were not threatened? Clichés about supporting the troops are designed to distract us from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war. Anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon. Many now agree that we must change our policy and extricate ourselves from the mess in Iraq. They cite a mandate from the American people for a new direction. This opinion is now more popular, and thus now more widely held by politicians in Washington. But there's always a qualifier: We can't simply stop funding the war, because we must support the troops. I find this conclusion bizarre. It means one either believes the "support the troops" propaganda put out by the original promoters of the war, or that one actually is for the war after all, despite the public protestations. In reality, support for the status quo (and the president's troop surge) in Iraq means expanding the war to include Syria and Iran. The naval build up in the region, and the proxy war we just fought to take over Somalia, demonstrate the administration's intentions to escalate our current war into something larger. There's just no legitimacy to the argument that voting against funding the war somehow harms our troops. Perpetuating and escalating the war only serve those whose egos are attached to some claimed victory in Iraq, and those with a determination to engineer regime change in Iran. Don't believe for a minute that additional congressional funding is needed so our troops can defend themselves or extricate themselves from the war zone. That's nonsense. The DOD has hundreds of billions of dollars in the pipeline available to move troops anywhere on earth – including home. We shouldn't forget that the administration took $600 million from the war in Afghanistan and used it in Iraq, before any direct appropriations were made for the invasion of Iraq. Funds are always available to put our troops into harms way; they are always available for leaving a war zone. Those in Congress who claim they want the war ended, yet feel compelled to keep funding it, are badly misguided. They either are wrong in their assessment that cutting funds would hurt the troops, or they need to be more honest about supporting a policy destined to dramatically increase the size and scope of this misadventure in the Middle East. Rest assured one can be patriotic and truly support the troops by denying funds to perpetuate and spread this ill-advised war. The sooner we come to this realization, the better it will be for all of us.

A Veterans Day Message By A Veteran, For Veterans.

I want to start off by saying Happy Veterans Day, and from the bottom of my heart, Thank You! I am forever grateful for my fellow 3274th USAH Soldiers and my Marine Corps crew from 2ndMarDiv., 7th Comm. Bn., I MLG, RCT-2, and the 24th MEU. I chose the following quotes because I think they, better than any other quotes, sum up what we do and why we do it. Political Policy and Public Opinion will always change. Civilian support will always come and go, but we, and our actions, will always remain. Our bonds will always endure. Even as I write this I think about arguments and disagreements some of us have had with each other. Some of those disagreements and wrongs still linger, but for a brief point in time, we stood side by side and did great things together and for each other. And, these things changed us forever, and they'll always play a part in our lives. That's something I take pride in, and would do all over again without question.

"We who have seen war, will never stop seeing it. In the silence of the night, we will always hear the screams. So this is our story, for we were soldiers once, and young. Some had families waiting. For others, their only family would be the men they bled beside. There were no bands, no flags, no Honor Guards to welcome them home. They went to war because their country ordered them to. But in the end, they fought not for their country or their flag, they fought for each other. "

-Joseph L. Galloway, "We Were Soldiers, Once And Young."

"A man fires a rifle, and he goes to war. And afterwards he comes home and sees that whatever else he may do with his life - build a house, love a woman, change his son's diaper - he will always remain a jarhead. And all the jarheads killing and dying, they will always be me. We are still in the desert."

-Anthony Swofford, "Jarhead"

As for the video, I did not in any way post this as a protest against the war, and I'm not condoning any of the actions in the video or saying that I or anyone I know took part in anything like what's depicted. I decided to use it as a way of saying that being over there changes you and tests you in ways that civilians don't and never will understand. It also makes you question right and wrong, and we all realize that hardly anything there is black and white. Shades of grey abound in so many situations. Civilians back home are in no place to judge or criticize us when they haven't walked in our shoes. Regardless of how I may feel about the legality of one war and the direction of another, WE WENT BECAUSE OUR COUNTRY ASKED US TO, AND WITH YOU ALL BY MY SIDE, I WOULD DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN! HAPPY VETERANS DAY MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS!

Hero of War by Rise Against: