>Reality Check
>Who is the Troops’ Champion?

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“Seinfeld” viewers might recall the nasty soup-counter despot who snarled at customers, “No soup for you!”

On TV, scorning the needs of people who keep you in business doesn’t always carry consequences. In the real world, it does.

Maybe senior leadership in the administration and the Pentagon has been watching too much “Seinfeld.” How else can we explain why, while overstretching our forces more than any other time since Korea, they vigorously have opposed so many initiatives aimed at providing some measure of support and relief? 

Active duty servicemembers are deploying four times as often as before the first Gulf War, and 60 percent of the National Guard and 40 percent of the Reserves have been called up. That’s not going to end anytime soon. Most people can see that a larger force is the only reasonable way to ease mission stress and forestall a retention and readiness breakdown, but the secretary of defense adamantly opposes any increase— “No manpower increase for you!”

Earlier this year, the Office of Management and Budget proposed to limit the 2004 military pay raise to 2 percent.

That didn’t happen, but White House budget planners’ willingness to abandon a fundamental principle of the all-volunteer force was clear to the troops—“No pay comparability for you!”

With guardmembers and reservists carrying a major part of the load in West Asia and their families struggling to deal with health care disruptions, Congress sought to provide them health coverage continuity. That brought a stern objection from the Pentagon—“No health coverage for you!”

Unhappy with the large worldwide Family Separation Allowance increase Congress enacted last year, the administration sought to cut deployment compensation for servicemembers outside the Afghanistan and Iraq combat zones. Congress extended the higher allowance, but deployed troops heard the Pentagon’s message—“No deployment allowance protection for you!”

As the risks of military service were highlighted in the headlines, Congress scrambled to change an unfair law that makes disabled military retirees fund their own VA disability compensation. The administration’s response? A threat to veto any such legislative effort—“No concurrent receipt for you!”

To be fair, much the same was going on before this administration came to office. Remember the last administration’s response to the outrageous idea that servicemembers and their families might deserve some military health coverage after they turn age 65? “No TRICARE For Life for you!”

Fortunately, legislative leaders usually have a better grasp than the executive branch of the effects of such attitudes on recruiting, retention, and readiness. 

Congress has stayed grounded enough on the concerns raised by MOAA, The Military Coalition, and others to pursue its own substantive action despite the administration’s objections. Even so, Congress hasn’t yet been willing to go against the administration’s resistance to the troops’ most pressing need—more manpower to share the load. 

One way or another, the troops will get the changes they need and deserve. The only question is whether that will happen before we break the force.

Executive branch leaders can’t keep spurning the needs of servicemembers whose continued service is vital to maintaining a strong national defense.

In the real world, that has serious recruiting, retention, and readiness consequences that can’t be ignored with impunity.