Just thought I would share a little something.........

[wildbill]

I received in an email this afternoon from a friend of mine.

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I'm not a fan of Rush Limbaugh, but he made a good point here . . .

What's a Military Family Worth? by Rush Limbaugh, March 11, 2002

I think the vast differences in compensation between the victims

the September 11th casualty, and those who die serving the country in

uniform, are profound.

No one is really talking about it either because you just don't

criticize anything having to do with September 11th. Well, I just can't let the numbers pass by because it says something really

disturbing about the entitlement mentality of this country.

If you lost a family member in the September 11th attack, you're going to get an average of $1,185,000. The range is a minimum guarantee of $250,000, all the way up to $4.7 million.

If you are a surviving family member of an American soldier killed in

action, the first check you get is a $6,000 direct death benefit, half which is taxable. Next, you get $1,750 for burial costs. If you are the surviving spouse, you get $833 a month until you remarry.

And there's a payment of $211 per month for each child under 18.

When the child hits 18, those payments come to a screeching halt.

Keep in mind that some of the people that are getting an average of

$1.185 million up to $4.7 million are complaining that it's not enough.

We also learned over the weekend that some of the victims from the

Oklahoma City bombing have started an organization asking for the same deal that the September 11th families are getting.

In addition to that, some of the families of those bombed in the

embassies are now asking for compensation as well.

You see where this is going, don't you?

Folks, this is part and parcel of over fifty years of entitlement

politics in this country. It's just really sad.

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the

tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime."-Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr. Every time when a pay raise comes up for the military they usually receive next to nothing of a raise. Now the green machine is in combat in the Middle East while their families have to survive on food stamps and live in low rent housing.

However our own U.S. Congress just voted themselves a raise, and many

of you don't know that they only have to be in Congress onetime to receive a pension that is more than $15,000 per month and most are now equal to be millionaires plus. They also do not receive Social Security on retirement because they didn't have to pay into the system. If some of the military people stay in for 20 years and get out as an E-7 you may receive a pension of $1,000 per

month,and the very people who placed you in harms way receive a pension of $15,000 per month. I would like to see our elected officials pick up a weapon and join ranks before they start cutting out benefits and lowering pay for our sons and daughters who are now fighting.

"When do we finally do something about this ??"

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I thought it raised some intersting points.All people enjoy liberty, some people enjoy it a little more than others and seem to be unwilling to agree, or consent to what the government thinks is neccessary in order to secure that liberty. To them, I say read up brothers, for there are many people who will die in order to fulfill your freedoms. And for little or for no reward, maybe just a little complaining over a DAV meeting.

[Yomar]

Rush Limbaugh is a logical loon.

Do families of peope who died fighting for this country deserve everything we can give them? Of course.

Is it fair to compare and contrast standard compensation to that received by the 9/11 victims? Not unless you are being purposefully negligent of the facts, which are that the 9/11 victim's families received the bulk of their compensation from the donations raised immediately after 9/11, arguably one of the most traumatic events to the American psyche in this country's short history and the result was a tremendous outpouring by the American people almost all of whom felt helpless to do anything but donate money and almost all of whom wanted terribly to help somehow, someway. The result was an obscene amount of money being raised in a very short time, and then, later when it was reported that most of the money was not being distributed to the families, there was a public outcry (guess what Rush's stance on that was?). Is it ugly when people seem ungrateful and want more money? sure, but that has nothing to do with military compensation to the families of dead solidiers or with the congressional pay scale.

[OrangeSkin]

I don't think he was saying that the 9/11 victims should get less money...he was just stating the fact that the people who are protecting this country against another 9/11 aren't getting nearly enough compensation.

Soldiers volunteer their lives, in the process putting their families through an emotional wringer. It's a shame that they don't get what they deserve, and it's an even bigger shame that selfish pricks don't understand how much we owe to these people.

[Yomar]

OrangeSkin, you bastion of human decency you, here is a website where you can put your money where your mouth is.

http://www.uso.org

[OrangeSkin]

I'll gladly donate. It's the least I can do to show my appreciation.

[wildbill]

Either way you look at it Yomar, the simple fact is that military compensation, when compared to what they are asked to do, is by far too little.

There's families back home that serve and at the same time receive food stamps in order to feed their families. Is there nothing wrong with that scenario?

[mardi gras skin]

We also learned over the weekend that some of the victims from the

Oklahoma City bombing have started an organization asking for the same deal that the September 11th families are getting.

Asking who? If the gov't didn't kick anything in to the Sept. 11 families, who would they even ask?

Military pay is low, but they signed up for it. I grew up in a military family. Dad was enlisted. Pay raises were great, but the real spending we wanted was for the best equipment possible. It always made me sick to hear people complain about an expensive fighter plane when we knew that less than the best equipment and training could mean that my friends dad would be easier to shoot down and kill. Or if my dad didn't get the best hospital equipment and training, he may not be able to save their lives.

We couldn't afford McDonald's but we knew that dad was a part of the #1 trained and equipped military in the world. That told me that my Dad's life was important to the people who made the decisions.

[Yomar]

I am not going to argue that we don't pay the families of those who died fighting for this country enough. But that point stands alone, the way Rush goes about making it, dragging in 9/11 victim's funds et al is ridiculous in my opinion.

[JackC]

Yomar,

What do you expect from someone like Limbaugh? The guy is a draft dodger himself! Now ain't that ironic?

[NavyDave]

When someone is getting a million dollars from charity and they b1tch that its not enough something is wrong there.

IMO everyone should have to serve in the military just like in Eastern Europe to repay their country for the priviledge of living there.

I not gonna get into a we get paid less than them spin since thats obvious.

I happened to be blessed due to investments and inheritance but I do feel for the patriotic young guys and chicks with families first starting out.

[The Sisko]

Where did you get the info. that Fatbaugh was a draft dodger ? If that's true, that would be quite interesting.

As for ND's suggestion about everybody having to spend some time in the military, I have always thought that to be an excellent idea. I spent my time in the Nat'l Guard and found it to be one of the best experiences of my life. At the time I felt that if I was going to do it I might as well be infantry since I thought being say a pencil pusher would be cheating the govt. out of the dough they were (supposed to be) giving me for school. Yes, I was a stoopid kid.

I get the idea that if a lot of the folks who have such hawkish ideas are the ones who's kids were potentially at risk, their opinions might be a bit different.

[Funkyalligator]

I agree to some degree with Rush, even though I dislike his pompous a**. As for the pay raises that Congress has been voting for themselves, that is a bunch of bs. In the past 5 years they have voted themselves 4 pay raises. This is in addition to all the perks that they recieve from their position if you actually calculated all their perks in the least amount of money a congressman would be making is 200,000 a year. That is sick!!! And they all still take bribes in one way or another.

[Henry]

While Rush is feeling all weepy over the plight of the American Serviceman, perhaps he might consider giving 95% of his (what, $ 20 mil/year?) salary to charities supporting families of veterans killed in action. Then maybe he wouldn't come across as a big fat hypocrite.

The fact is that people in the military and their families understand the risks they are taking. That life and the risks that come with it is the life they chose. Some wife of some line cook at the WTC cafeteria probably didn't think there was ever a chance in hell of her husband dying a horrible death at the hands of terrorists. No choice involved.

Then again, that's exactly why bombing a nation's civilians as opposed to it's military is considered bad form.

Rush is just doing what Rush does: Coming up with stances he thinks are clever and controversia to stir the pot. Yawn.

[fansince62]

all well and good....but pls.......for all the non-participants....cease the blustering about freedom, etc. there was a time in this nation's history when every young man considered himself duty-bound to contribute to the common defense. if you look at the demographics and income statistics, it's very clear that most segments of the population do not feel a similar obligation. the flip side is that other segments of the population shoulder a disporportionate share of the risk for the "common defense". worse, the tacit attitude conveyed by many on even this board is one that views the military as a mercenary force: "you volunteered, you're paid", etc., etc...........limbaugh's point is a distractor, but the deeper issue is how few are willing to share the risk, shoulder the burden

[Henry]

Fansince62, before you get all hot and bothered, I don't think anyone here is trying to take anything away from those in the military. If Limbaugh simply said we need to give our military men and women a raise I'd whole-heartedly agree with him.

That's not what he said. He decided to drag victims of the worst terrorist attack in world history through the mud to shock us into paying attention. I don't like that. I REALLY don't like using 9/11 that way. Obviously some people get more money than they should. Some make more than the should. And some make less. That's capitalism, like it or not. That's why Rush is a multi-millionaire, while the wife of a Marine killed in Afganistan gets $833/month.

If Rush wants everyone to get paid equally or according to what the government deems their proper value to society, he's more than welcome to join the Communist party and run for President.

If, however, he enjoys his millions as a talk-show host, he might want to exhibit a little more class next time.

And frankly, I don't see ANYWHERE in that rant an underlying message that we should all be more willing to serve no matter what the pay. He said something about how elected officials should be willing to fight before giving themselves a raise, (as if noone in congress has ever served in the military ) but nowhere does he call on his fellow American to rally around the 'common defense.'

Which, by the way, is a much better point than anything Limbaugh actually came up with.

[fansince62]

henry...since you have approached this with a reasonable tone, I will respond in kind. note that I said Limbaugh's argument was a distractor so I have no real agrument with a central point of your's. My real intent was to take issue with the implications of your assertion that folks in the military are volunteers and therefore somehow on a different moral or economic plane. Additionally, I sought to highlight the fact that in distinction to times past, there is no evident perception/belief by large segments of the population that they shoulder any obligation to share the burden in times of crisis. specifically, the military burden. there's too much defense by proxy going on.

most of the conversation I have witnessed on this board about the situation in the middle east and foreign policy in general is so far off the mark as to make me wonder even more than previously what is going on in our universities, press and media. why is it that we only respond to short term shocks? why is that we cannot understand a real threat for what it is? there are people in the world, lots of people, lots of organized/funded/fairly intelligent if radical & crazy people who want to kill us; who want to kill europeans as well; who want to kill israelis of any stripe. read the papers. see what they have been "experimenting" with. understand what is going on in pakistan and what "options" are available there (see a Discovery report earlier this year). contemplate the littany of attacks that have already occurred in this country. to put it in colloquial terms some may understand, there are a lot of "terminators" out there who pose a very real threat to us: "they can't be reasoned with". today and tomorrow. christ, even howard stern had it right......we need to kill these motha....ers.......before they kill us. then we can fret over the niceties of clinton vs bush, excess american consumerism, right wing paranoia vs left wing godliness, etc., etc., etc.

[RiggoDrill]

If we really want to solve the problem we should dramatically reduce our oil consumption, so that we could get by just on Russian, Norwegian and North American oil.

Face it, we don't give a flying f*ck about the middle east other than oil. And we only give a sh*t about Israel because of Jewish American lobbyists -- Israel doesn't do much for us, after all.

As long as we're engineering regime changes, arming one state against another (e.g. Iran vs. Iraq), and stationing large numbers of troops there, we're going to have trouble. It's that simple.

We owe it to ourselves as Americans to tighten our belts, fund research in alternative energy, and use our country's ingenuity and strength to divorce ourself from a situation/region that will ALWAYS be rife with violence and problems.

The sooner the better.

[fansince62]

riggo...there is some credence in what you argue. however, i point out that that we have reached the point , and the nature of the threat is such that, no matter what we do they are coming after us. moreover, the types of weapons they are reported to hold by the press pose a threat to the entire world not just us. so, yea, technology driven change that consumers buy into is a path that warrants consideration and funding. but that will not eliminate this threat or the magnitude of what is going on in that part of the world.

[Henry]

Fansince62, I hear you. Concerning the military and our forgien policy, I completely, totally and in all other ways agree with you.

I think you took one statement I made with regards to Limbaugh being a doofus and ran with it, which is why I tried to steer the conversation towards the point I was trying to make in the first place.

Riggo, there's more than just The Jewish Conspiracy at work in our forgien policy desicions. Israel is the strongest military power in the region. They are also supported by the religious right, who see Israel as the only nation is the region that supports a Western religion of any kind.

[Funkyalligator]

Also in reference to Israel, they have a very well developed high technology sector that not too many people know about, the US shares a great deal of technology with them, and it does go both ways not just US to Israel.