#HelpVets Troops face devastating one-two punch 27FEB14

SOME people think they are supporting our troops by passing on sappy e mails that make them feel good or by thanking an active duty service person or military vet for their service. Well, neither does anything to put food in their and their family's mouth or provides the health care, education, job training and other benefits they deserve for their service to our country. Yet the same people who feign gratitude and concern for our troops and vets can't be bothered to challenge, to demand their Representative and Senators pass legislation and provide the funding for the support and programs our troops need. The cuts to food stamps / SNAP and subsidies to military commissaries coupled with the filibuster in the Senate of S1982 (Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014 ), reflect the hypocrisy of the gop and democrats and president regarding the support and welfare of our troops and vets. Failure of everyone who claims to support our troops to contact their Representative http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and Senators http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm and Pres Obama http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact and demand better for our active duty military and our vets and less for the brass and military-industrial complex will expose their hypocrisy too. More at #HelpVets VETS BILL DIES IN SENATE, HOW YOUR SENATOR VOTED & With just 41 votes, Republican senators block veterans benefits bill 27FEB14 ( http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/vets-bill-dies-in-senate-how-your.html )
Mark E Andersen for Daily Kos Labor

Military food stamp use

When you think of someone who receives food stamps you generally do not think of someone serving our nation in uniform as being a recipient of food stamps. Surely we pay our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines enough money each month to support a family. Well, the sad truth is that no, junior enlisted do not make enough money to support a family. Which is why so many military families qualify for food stamps and is also why food stamp use in Commissaries (a grocery store on post) have gone from $26.2 million in fiscal year 2006 to $103.6 million in 2013.

Some of the growth in soldiers' redemption of food stamps reflects the weak economic recovery, especially for spouses looking for jobs. In 2012, there was a 30% unemployment rate among spouses off active-duty military who were 18 to 24 years old, according to the Military Officers Association of America, which released the survey last week.

Cuts in the food stamp programs will only make things worse for many military families. But, that is not the worst part. Coupled with cuts in food stamp programs...

...the Defense Department subsidy [for commissaries] would drop from $1.4 billion annually to $400 million under a defense budget proposal the Obama administration plans to deliver to Congress next week, Pentagon officials announced Monday. The commissary cut will be accomplished not by eliminating any commissary locations, but by reducing the amount of savings over civilian markets that service members enjoy.

Talk about a double whammy. Congress makes cuts to benefits that junior enlisted troops need in order to feed their families and at the same time the DOD is cutting one billion dollars from the commissaries budget. Which puts many young military families at risk. It never ceases to amaze me; our government blows billions of dollars on weapons systems that don’t work and that we don’t need – yet we expect these young men and women to put their lives on the line day in and day out and we pay them so little that they have to use food stamps to make ends meet and to top it all off we whittle away at the benefits they receive costing them even more money that they do not have.
Instead of the Pentagon pissing away more money on an aircraft carrier, fighter jet, or some other weapons system we don’t need, how about making sure the young men and women who put their lives on the line every day are adequately cared for.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/27/1280110/-Troops-face-devastating-one-two-punch?detail=email

2 Army brigades to leave Europe in cost-cutting move from the WASHINGTON POST 12JAN12

A smart move by Pres Obama, will save us money and make Europe more responsible for their own security. Now if we could only get Europe, Japan, the prc and S Korea to accept the responsibility for protecting their oil supplies from the Persian Gulf....

By Greg Jaffe

FORT BLISS, Tex. — The Obama administration has decided to remove two of the four U.S. Army brigades remaining in Europe as part of a broader effort to cut $487 billion from the Pentagon’s budget over the next decade, said senior U.S. officials.
The reductions in Army forces, which have not been formally announced, are likely to concern European officials, who worry that the smaller American presence reflects a waning of interest in the decades-long U.S.-NATO partnership in Europe.
Top Pentagon officials have sought to allay the concerns by telling their NATO allies in private meetings that the United States will continue to rotate Army units through Europe on training missions to augment the presence of the remaining two brigades.
“In the briefing we’ve been giving the Europeans, we have made clear that there is going to be this rotational presence there that will be conducting exercises,” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said in an interview.
“As a matter of fact, they will probably see more of the Americans under the new strategy because the brigades that were there were actually fighting in Afghanistan and weren’t even there. . . . What you are going to have is two [brigades] plus this large rotational presence that is going to be there.”
The reductions are part of a Pentagon plan to shrink the Army from its current 560,000 soldiers to about 490,000, defense officials said. The cuts are being driven by a new defense strategy that calls for smaller, faster and more agile forces and a shift in focus toward the Asia-Pacific region, where China has been investing in submarines, fighter jets and precision-guided missiles.
Senior Obama administration officials have targeted Europe for cuts because they recognize that reductions in U.S. forces abroad will generate less congressional outcry than cuts in the United States, where the soldiers pump money into local economies.
The U.S. military maintains about 80,000 troops in Europe from all of the services. Cutting two Army brigades and the noncombat units that support them will result in a reduction of about 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers.
Panetta’s idea of augmenting American presence around the world by rotating combat brigades or smaller Army units through areas on training exercises is a relatively new concept for the regular Army, which has historically maintained a more static, garrison-based force in Europe.
During the past decade, the Army’s combat brigades have rotated with little rest to Iraq and Afghanistan on 12- to 15-month tours.
“If we can develop these innovative rotational presences elsewhere, we will be in a position to basically cover not only the areas where we are keeping a key focus — the Pacific and the Middle East — but we will be covering the world,” Panetta said.
He said the Pentagon envisions sending Army units to areas such as Latin America and Africa on training exercises as the Obama administration continues to cut the size of the U.S. force in Afghanistan. Such missions have typically been conducted by Army Special Forces units and the Marine Corps.