BUSH v PYLE

[HARDCORE]

Our President, George Walker Bush, needs no introduction. Neither, for that matter, does his gallant father, the youngest pilot in the Navy during World War II!

The elder Bush flew an "Avenger Dive-Bomber" from the decks of the Carrier San Jacinto, and was himself splashed (shot down), and also completed some 58 combat missions! In this incident, two of "Bush Sr.?s Crew" did not survive, and but for an act of God (and/or fate), the man who normally manned the turret gun on Bush?s plane, was not present on that flight, and is still with us today!

Well, the exploits of "George Herbert Walker Bush", the man who would become our 41st President, and who?s son, would later become the Governor of Texas and the 43rd President, are well known! As a matter of fact, the Old Man even put in a stint with the CIA, one of the Agencies that supplied LSD during MK ULTRA EXPERIMENTATION! There is, however, one point of fact (?) that is not as well known about the younger Bush!?

Back during World War II, one of the most famous war correspondents of all times, Ernest Taylor Pyle (the famous Ernie Pyle), later killed in that War, busted his ass to acquire ?Combat Pay? for grunts!

Quote Indiana Historical Society:

?Ernie Pyle?, born in 1900, and known as ?The Hoosier Reporter?, not only described the soldiers' hardships, but also spoke out on their behalf.

In a column from Italy in 1944, Pyle proposed that "Combat Soldiers" be given "Fight Pay", similar to an airman's flight pay! And in May of that year, Congress acted on Pyle's suggestion, giving soldiers 50 percent extra pay for combat duty. The legislation was nicknamed "The Ernie Pyle Bill."

Now, however, almost six decades later, George Bush Jr. (?), or grossly misguided members of his entourage (some in the Pentagon included), according to some media sources (?), are seeking to get Combat Pay for those out in ?Harm?s Way? reduced!?

If (?) this is true, then this move reminds me of a young state-level politico that I once met, who won election, partially in the shadows of his father?s air-combat experience in World War II!

While running (for office that is), this talented youngster always made it a point to have a photo of his dad, in WWII flight gear, and standing in front of a fighter-plane, prominently displayed right behind him!

Well, this talented young kid is not his father, none of us are, and in Bush?s case, I find it somewhat troubling that (according to some sources), that because of economic concerns etc, President Bush (or a few members of his Administration), are seeking to reduce combat pay for our troopers in the bloody field????

And might I add, that at the same time that some are touting
"Combat Pay Reductions", or other restrictions to retirement benefits, (as well as a slimming down of veteran?s medical benefits), elements of our government are still seeking huge middle of the night pay raises, and are living high off of the pork grown on the hog's ass!

"Ernie Pyle", who because of his age, did not have to serve close to the front lines, did so anyway and by choice! Of course, he would have been much safer had he restricted his activities to stateside reporting, pandering in front of a studio camera like some news-hawks now do, or National Guard duties on the ever-dangerous home front!?

The little extra pay ?EARNED? by those who let it all hang out in combat, is a small enough way for a country to express it?s gratitude, ?don?t you think!?? And the VA benefits earned by men who served honorably, either in combat or not, should also be considered untouchable by those to whom hardship consists of a choice between domestic or imported bubbly!

But then, when one spends a fortune in "Supporting Half Of The Semi-Friendly Nations On Earth", and their "Big Brothers" at the United Nations, as well as the humongous administrative costs of certain (oft-time) nasty bureaucracies (one alone well over $60,000,000,000 a year, and they are low on the totem-pole), that leaves precious damned little to ?GENUINELY? take care of our own, now does it!

?NOW COMES THE EXCUSES, THE LIES, THE ALIBIS and THE PURE POLITICAL BULL SHIT, RIGHT!? Bull Shit, I might add, that will be politically flavored with sugar and spice, in about 13 months or so!! (MY OPINIONS)

VERITAS

[MORTARDUDE]

What is it with these f**king morons supposedly running this country ? We have major conflicts going on in Afghanistan and Iraq....the National Guard and Reserves stretched to the limits...enlistments are down..and all I keep hearing is reduce this pay, cut that pay, change that benefit, pay for your meals while you are shot up and in the hospital....and lets just screw the brave soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coast guardsmen on active duty any way they can, and also their families... they should be increasing their pay and benefits...God knows when they get out they will have to deal with the VA.....and we all know what a joy that has become...NOT !!

I am sorry, but I can't vote Republican in the next election...I will probably write in Mickey Mouse...it will do just about as much good...LOL

Larry

[HARDCORE]

I was thinking about voting for "Bullwinkle" myself! Hey, come to think of it, he just might be a shoo-in!! He could run on the Bull Moose Ticket!

As far as Mickey Mouse, most politicos already grace that ticket, don't ya think!?

VERITAS

[BLUEHAWK]

Thinking about what to do this next election, re:this thread...

> Support the current president because it is less dangerous than changing horses at full gallop in the middle of a torential flooded Mississippi?

> Vote for someone else unless president Bush promises to get rid of those AEI and American Project for The... advisors?

Is it Bush himself who advocates reducing combat pay (and all the rest), or is it someone else? I have not seen or read or heard the president say so.

[HARDCORE]

MIKE (BLUEHAWK et al)

The following is what I have been able to pull out thus far on these proposed military pay cuts. I will also attempt to dig deeper!?
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../08/15/PAY.TMP
Pentagon reverses course, won't cut troops' pay

"mailto:eepstein@sfchronicle.com" Friday, August 15, 2003 \l "sections" \l "sections"

Washington -- The White House quickly backpedaled Thursday on Pentagon plans to cut the combat pay of the 157,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan after disclosure of the idea quickly became a political embarrassment.

The Pentagon's support for the idea of rolling back "imminent danger pay" by $75 a month and "family separation allowances" for the American forces by $150 a month collapsed after a story in some editions of The Chronicle Thursday generated intense criticism from military families, veterans groups and Democratic candidates seeking to unseat President Bush in 2004.

"We support extending the pay provisions," White House spokesman Jimmy Orr said late Thursday afternoon after a day in which Bush's political opponents bashed him for what they said was a callous attitude toward combat troops who are still suffering casualties.

"We intend to ensure they continue to receive this compensation at least at the current levels," the Defense Department said in a separate statement about members of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines.

The issue stems from congressional action April when the House and Senate increased the imminent danger pay for the first time in more than a decade to $225 a month from $150. The family allowance was raised from $100 to $250 monthly.

However, the increases, which were retroactive to last October, are set to expire on Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year, unless Congress and the president continue them.

Last month, the Pentagon sent Congress an interim budget report detailing requests for spending cuts. It said the Defense Department supported rolling back the increases, which it said would cost more than $25 million a month to continue. It said that in addition to supporting a pay rollback, Pentagon experts would launch a study of the entire issue of combat pay.

ARMY TIMES AGAINST CUTS

Word of the pay cut plans were first disclosed by the Army Times, an independent newspaper for service members, which editorialized against the idea.

When it returns from its August recess, Congress will try to resolve differences in the House and Senate versions of a $369 billion defense spending bill. The Senate version calls for continuing the higher levels of pay for service in Iraq and Afghanistan and other danger zones. The House wants to pay more for service in those two countries than for service in such other areas as Balkan peacekeeping duties.

Orr, the White House spokesman, said the administration now wanted the higher pay kept on the broadest possible basis. "We'd like to see the pay provision more broadly applied to our men and women in uniform serving in many different capacities of defending our nation and its interests," he said.
If Congress doesn't act by Sept. 30, Orr said, it should make the higher pay scales retroactive so forces in dangerous areas don't lose even a day's pay.

Military base pay ranges from $1,064 a month for the lowliest recruit to almost $12,000 a month for a top general. The complicated military pay system also offers an array of housing and expense allowances for service members and their dependents and income tax breaks, in addition to combat pay.

PENTAGON DEFLECTS CRITICISM

The Pentagon's personnel chief, David Chu, told reporters at a hastily arranged press conference that the outrage was misguided. While it is true that the Pentagon favors allowing the extra combat pay allowances to expire in September, Chu said, it will ensure that overall compensation for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan remains stable by giving them other forms of pay raises.

"I would just like to very quickly put to rest what I understand has been a burgeoning rumor that somehow we are going to reduce compensation for those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan," Chu said. "That is not true. We are not going to reduce that compensation."

Another Pentagon official e-mailed every member of Congress saying that the department never intended to cut service members' pay in combat areas. If congressional authorization for the extra pay lapses on Oct. 1, he said, the Pentagon will use other funds to make sure no one loses pay.

The administration position changed after a day of roiling criticism of the Pentagon call for a pay cut.

Among hundreds of e-mails to The Chronicle, Marianne Leigh, the mother of two sons in the Army, wrote, "I'm appalled that Congress should even consider such a ludicrous idea."

"In my opinion these soldiers are still fighting a WAR. Not until each and every one of them come home is this war over," added Leigh, who has one son in Tikrit, Iraq, and another serving as a peacekeeper in Kosovo.

From Petaluma, reader Hans Clever suggested the military pitch a new slogan for the Army: "Pick up service, pick up challenge, pick up an even smaller paycheck."

Since Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq on May 1, 60 U.S. service personnel have died in combat-related incidents. Another 69 have been killed by disease, or from the heat or accidents.

CANDIDATES SPEAK OUT

Democratic politicians also weighed in.

In San Francisco, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut said, "The idea is just unconscionable. The government can afford the billions they give in tax cuts to millionaires, but there's not enough to give a little something to men and women who are putting their lives on the line."

Another Democratic candidate, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., said, "Our military deserves every dollar they earn and more. . . .

The administration should reverse itself immediately."
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, said, "How nice of them to clarify their position and reverse course."

Tauscher, a House Armed Services Committee member, said the pay cut idea typified her frustration with the Pentagon. "This was just the tip of the iceberg," she said. "They won't tell us how much the war in Iraq is costing, for instance."

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, sent Bush a letter protesting the Pentagon's pay cut idea.

"To call this misguided would be a gross understatement," wrote Thompson, a Purple Heart Vietnam war veteran.

"This is an outrageous and hypocritical affront to our soldiers in the Middle East who are being killed on a daily basis and to their families," he added.

[phuloi]

Can you link us with more on this cut combat pay thing.I`ve looked for the "official" skinny on this and have come up empty.If this is factual,I`m with you and Larry in voting for an abstract animation.How bout this guy?

[HARDCORE]

phuloi et al -

Here is more information along these lines to catch-up on. Hope that it brings enlightenment?!
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http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q...cut&FORM=SMCRT

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VERITAS :cd: :ek:

[BLUEHAWK]

So, for the moment, the INCREASES have been kept as they are, and it remains to be seen whether they will be continued after the current budget proposal is voted upon. Any REDUCTIONS are from an INcrease rather than from the rate as it was going into Iraq.

Seems to me, a sentimental person, that America can afford $25,000,000 a month for our fighters and their families if we can afford $87,000,000,000 on top of the already allocated $79,000,000,000.

Thanks for the clarifications HC...

[HARDCORE]

It took a common man like Ernie Pyle (Bless His Soul) to acknowledge the worth, dedication and sacrifices of our fighting men and women, and just a few power-hungry wimps in high places to "ATTEMPT" to turn our fighting military into just so much political $$$$ cannon fodder!

Regardless of whether a few members of Congress and the ever greedy "Powers That Be" succeeded in their treachery, the point is that "THEY TRIED TO SCREW US OVER - mentally, morally, economically & physically (opinion)!!"

It wasn't doing the right and proper thing that totally motivated their consciences, but rather the dreadful thought that their lackluster tenures of "Big Pay, Absolute Power, and Goddom", might abruptly come to an end, drowned under ?A Tsunami (Tidal Wave) Of Public Outrage?, and so it still may be!!??

If it takes a jolt of political and civic reality to instill a 'temporary' conscience into a few of our elected officials, and then only to save their own floundering asses, then I say it is time to flush the toilet, and some of them along with it I suspect! "November 2, 2004, this way (quickly) comes!!"

"Political Partisanship Be Damned" - when it concerns the survival of our nation, our military's well being, our livelihoods, and our families - truth, honor, justice and fair play, are our only saviors!! Liars, political users and power brokers, have no honorable place within our history books, regardless of their party affiliations!!

Unfortunately, however, this very same truth will not bring back one dead trooper, one blown-away limb, one lost job, one iota of lost sanity, or even one ounce of the honor pissed upon by those who took joy in wielding their bloody and vested axes against "We The People!!" That which is departed, (often) unfortunately remains so!

"Let not our freedoms and liberty too, succumb to the ambitions of the few, internationally or domestic!?"



VERITAS

[BLUEHAWK]

I know, for anyone to even ATTEMPT such a thing, facing what we all are, is unconscionable.