So I just saw a story on CBS Evening News that really angered me.

[dutch508]

Star Member Stinky The Clown (63,674 posts)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216123872

So I just saw a story on CBS Evening News that really angered me.

Essentially, our military families are food insecure and using food banks.

WHAT THE ABSOLUTE **** ? ? ?

The story ran today. December 7, 2021. Eighty years after the risk our military members assume was made clear.

Our lower rank enlisted military are FOOD INSECURE.

Chew on that.

Mother

****er

Who keeps trying to cut the military budget?

Star Member nolabear (38,925 posts)

1. Military poor has been a thing forever.

Even back in the 60s when I was an Air Force brat we might not have been hungry but we were pretty poor. Trailer poor. If you have a family and problems that make it hard to have two comes it can be, and shouldn’t be, a problem.

Star Member Stinky The Clown (63,674 posts)

3. I was in the Navy in the mid 60s

I may have been dumb, young, and naive but I don't recall the problem. Of course,I was single, stupid, and horny so it would have been easy for me to miss it.

 

Star Member TomSlick (8,627 posts)

16. True.

My Army time was from the early 80s until the early 2010s. During all that time, junior enlisted folks with families were eligible for food stamps.

"Thank you for your service" is cheaper than paying service members a living wage.

Star Member marble falls (45,451 posts)

2. It's been like that since I was in during the early seventies. It's better than it was ...

... believe it or not. The Biden administration just gave enlisted ranks what I've heard is one the biggest raises ever in the last three months.

uh... np.

Today, the Department of Defense announced annual cost of living adjustments that will benefit military retirees and survivors during calendar year 2022. Most military retirees will receive a 5.9 percent increase to their retired pay beginning with the pay they receive on January 1, 2022, which is the largest such increase since 1982.

it's due to inflation.

Victor_c3 (2,983 posts)

5. As a veteran, I'm surprised

But then again, I never really noticed or thought about such things when I was in the Army. I was a junior officer and I lived off post when I was assigned to any sort of a line unit. Outside of work, I just about never interacted with other service members.

I do know that housing was solely based on need where I was stationed. If you were a Private and you had a wife and six kids, they gave you house that had plenty of bedrooms for the family. I always assumed that the family could afford food too, but housing is handled differently (and more holistically) than food.

Caliman73 (8,791 posts)

14. Just now?

Military spending is the largest item in Federal discretionary spending, and it has NEVER been spent on the actual soldiers and their families.

That has been an issue for decades. Remember hearing about the Bonus Army during the Depression? The squalid conditions of the VA during the Vietnam War? The predatory loans affecting Gulf War vets? The shitty housing on bases with electrocution risk and unpotable water because KBR needed to cut corners to make profit. The elimination of military food services, privatization, and overcharging of soldiers for meals?


The military puts A LOT of money into training soldiers and equipping them to kill, but very little money into actually helping them to live.

Star Member ancianita (24,834 posts)

18. **** REPUBLICANS -- THIS IS ALL ON THEM. LET THIS BE CAMPAIGN FODDER!

 

[DefiantSix]

Star Member ancianita (24,834 posts)

18. **** REPUBLICANS -- THIS IS ALL ON THEM. LET THIS BE CAMPAIGN FODDER!

Umm, DUmbass?

Yeah, have you been in a coma the last year or so?

Or did you just forget that it's YOUR illegitimate, dementia-addled pedophile occupying the Oval Orifice, and your gaggle of corrupt, septagenarian ****wits currently in charge of both Houses of Congress?

 

[DLR Pyro]

Which administration is talking about paying illegal aliens millions of dollars for being caught breaking our laws?

And the same administration is looking to spend billions of dollars to resettle Afghanistan refugees?

Why isn't this same administration directing that money to our Military families?

[67 Rover]

What party was it that kicked our military men and women out of government buildings in January forcing them to sleep on the ground in parking garages and then proceeded to feed them contaminated meals? 

I'm sorry, why do you suddenly care now?