Good to go's jerk comment here made me think of something else. We do "depend upon [the government] for everything." The military is socialist system. Health care is free, housing is free, most services are free. And that's the worst part about being with the Army. Health care is free, so there are long lines at the doctor and forget about making a dental or eye appointment. Housing is free, so if you turn down the house they offer you, they take you off the list for 90 days. And services are free, so when we moved here, our flight was delayed for six hours and they put us on a plane with no overhead compartments that didn't have enough fuel to make it across the Atlantic. The movers also forgot to ship our belongings until after we arrived here (and the Army also forgot to pay us for two and a half months).
But all of this stuff is free, so you can't complain. Often the people who provide these services don't have much job pride or customer-oriented goals either, because what are you gonna do, take your business elsewhere? I live a socialist lifestyle, and it ain't pretty.
Posted by Sarah at February 18, 2005 05:19 PMSarah,
I grinned when I read this. It is true, we get what we pay for. Older military folks recognize that sometimes things don't go well in the military, especially after moving throughout the world so many times. My wife is an Air Force brat, and they frequently lived in what her Mom called a "D-U-M-P, Dump" for many years in several duty stations. She lived with me in 10 different locations in 21 yrs, and even cried when I brought her to the D-U-M-P we lived in while I served in our nation's capital.
But we forget that we get what we pay for, and in the case of soldiers moving around, the military doesn't pay much. The job goes to the lowest bidder on almost everything. We frequently joke that even the ammunition we use, and the weapons we wield, were provided by the lowest bidder. Lucky for us the military really, really cares whether they work or not.
The only consolation, sometimes, is that we pay an awful lot for a plane or a tank or a ship. And those things bring us to the fight, and bring us home to the love and affection you, our wives, provide us when the fight is over because they work so well. It is you, the wives, who have to live with the neglect and cheapness of the military life, because America will pay for the things we need to fight, but she won't pay well for the things we need to live.
You have my sympathy and my respect, but not my pity. You are too tough and honorable for that. And for what it is worth, when all this is over, it will have been worth it, whether you do it for 4 years or 40 years.
Bless you, dear.
Subsunk
Posted by: Subsunk at February 18, 2005 07:06 PMIts only communism when you get these things simply for being a citizen of the country. Your husband signed an employment contract with the government. That's capitalism! Whether or not you signed a fair contract, is a whole different ballgame!
Posted by: Tanker Schreiber at February 18, 2005 07:31 PMI think the salient point is that g2g's "jerk comment" (Sarah, you're a saint to be that generous in your description) suggested that they're getting a good deal/free ride, where the reality is that almost anybody out there could live a better life elsewhere -- military service is a *sacrifice*, not a joyride. I'm sure Canada has plenty of space for asshats like good to go.
Posted by: James at February 18, 2005 07:51 PMThe first thing my husband said on IM when I showed him that comment was "I provide a service to my government and I get a salary. Government workers are not the same thing as getting government entitlements." Sometimes his salary seems generous (when we think of the tax-free benefits) and sometimes it seems stingy (he makes $4/hr in Iraq), but it's a *salary*. It's not welfare.
Thanks for your eloquent comment, Subsunk. I appreciate your respect, and I don't need any pity. I love my life just the way it is.
"The military is soc1alist system."
I noticed that, too. In the Army, I said it once to a buddy who must have grown up in an old-school 'better dead than red' household and boy did he get pissed. But yeah, the military is about the closest thing we have in our society to the soc1alist worker's paradise. So, I can't understand why self-proclaimed soc1alists (who mostly live the lifestyles of privileged, pampered capitalists) hate the military so much.
Posted by: Eric at February 19, 2005 11:45 PM