Passionate Pachyderms Calls Out Paul Ryan, And Others On Cuts To Retired Military Benefits

In the week prior to leaving Washington on yet another three week vacation, Congress and the Senate passed a last minute budget deal which came out of nowhere in order to facilitate an end to the sequester cuts scheduled to take place as of the first of the coming year.

One of Wisconsin’s own,  Congressman Paul Ryan was an author of this last minute backroom deal in which disabled veterans, and retired military members bear the brunt of the only cuts made. The pretense under which they made these unholy cuts, was that it supposedly amounts to  a 1% cut to their retirement pay over an extended period of time. However, the truth of the matter is that it is a cut to those disability and retirement benefits which amounts to more than $100 thousand dollars over the military members lifetime.

There is a long list of places this money could have and should have been taken from before they turned to our disabled veterans, retired military members, and their families.

Having spent over years the U.S. Navy myself, and worked with military families throughout that time who experienced problems and crisis situations other American families have no concept of, I am uniquely aware of the sacrifices endured by these American Patriots and their active duty family members.

Many, have been unable to support their own families with the meager paychecks afforded them, let alone save money for the college educations of their children. In my own personal experience, I was unable to be with my family as my own mother was diagnosed with advanced stage Cancer, or to be home to assist her as she went through more than a year of radiation treatments, nor when as a result of those treatments she suffered a significant stroke.

We could not afford the cost of travel home to Wisconsin from Guantanamo Bay Cuba, and thus were forced to ask for loans from the Red Cross in order to make those trips, loans which then had to be paid back, further depleting the minimal funds available to support a military family after nearly 20 years service.

During that 20 years, my family and I moved 19 times. My children were never afforded the opportunity to make lifelong friends, or establish ties to any particular place, and as a result, have difficulty establishing and maintaining long term relationships even as adults.

With each of those 19 moves, we were forced to come up with thousands of dollars in expenses the military didn’t cover for things like hotels, security deposits, fees to turn on utility services, rugs to cover the the hard terrazzo floors installed in all military housing, and professional cleaning services who specialized in military housing “move out inspections” known to be particularly difficult to pass for anyone not a professional. In these inspections, they looked in places like the tracks of windows for even a speck of dust or dirt, and took apart stoves to inspect every inch of them. Most families in the midst of moving across the country, or world couldn’t take the chance of being delayed or unable to report to their next duty station on time because they failed their final housing inspection, so they hired these cleaning services at their own expense…. The military never covered those expenses, or hundreds of other ones.

And yet we continued to serve our fellow Americans, and our country. We continued to uproot our families and move them to God forsaken remote duty stations like Guantanamo Bay Cuba, and deploy to war torn countries like Afghanistan. We continued to spend months and years separated from our families, come home to children who no longer recognized us as their parents, and do our jobs as we were told, trusting that when we were finished, and our time was done, the American people and our Government would take their promises to us seriously, as seriously as we all took our promises to them. That they would provide us with the retirement pay and benefits WE EARNED, and spent our lives, and our children’s lives sacrificing for.

So here is my own message to Paul Ryan, and all those Republicans who voted in favor of this monstrosity, SCREW YOU, SCREW YOUR PROMISES, and SCREW YOUR RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGNS.

Just as our government left those in Benghazi as they were begging for help, abandoning their promises to never leave anyone behind, and just as our government is now screwing all retired military members, disabled veterans, and their families in this shameful clusterfuck of processing delays, budgeting excuses, and non representing representation, we will now leave all of you in your hour of greatest need, and renig on our promises to support you.You have shown us that useless politicians apparently don’t have the intelligence God gave a gnat, and have even less loyalty and/or capacity for human decency, and that is NOT what we served our time to protect.

The decision to short change retired and disabled military members and their families, so that as politicians you can continue enjoying the perks, comfortable lifestyles, and under the table K street deals that turn public service employees, into multi millionaires on the backs of American Taxpayers will come back to haunt you forever.

I say, Come on America, what more proof do you need? It’s time to CLEAN THE HOUSE, do a military style move out inspection, charge them for each and every dirty deal, missing stapler, and sticky mess they leave behind for someone else to clean up, and replace them with REAL AMERICAN PATRIOTS who actually DO represent their constituents. Further, it’s time to enact LIFETIME term limits of no more than 5 two year terms, or a total of 10 years for congress, and two 6 year terms, or a total of 12 years for the senate. Anything that can’t be accomplished in 10 years time, probably shouldn’t be something the government is entrusted with anyway.

Mr. Ryan, sir, to sum this up, you messed with the WRONG group of individuals. We are the ones who know how to get the jobs done, and you can be sure that in the coming weeks, months, and years, we’ll stop at nothing to accomplish our mission. The difference between you and us is, when we say something , WE MEAN IT! If we say “I’ve got your back,” You can bet we’ve got it. If we tell you a chicken is going to move a freight train, you best run down and get the harness, because, one way or another, we’re going to make it happen. On the other hand,The majority of Republican politicians apparently don’t mean anything they say. They routinely make promises they’ve no intention of keeping, they’ed throw their own mothers under the campaign bus if it meant a favorable back room deal for a few campaign dollars, they have no sense of loyalty, respect, or honor, and they take perverse pleasure in eating their own young.

Good luck with that Mr. Ryan, I promise you, I’ll be working very hard in Wisconsin to make sure this is the LAST back room deal you make on the backs of those who trusted you to do the right thing for them.   I welcome anyone who wishes to, to forward this on to Congressman Ryan, as well as to all those Republicans who voted in favor of doing this. Further,as the leader and founder of the national political action group,Passionate Pachyderms, I encourage each and every person reading this to make sure their elected representatives know you feel the same way. Enough is enough, and when they start taking from the most deserving among us, rather than from themselves, we’ve gone far beyond any point in which we can continue to look in the other direction for something, some tiny bit of kibble they have done for which we can pat them on the back. It’s time to FIGHT BACK America, and it begins with you, today, RIGHT here, RIGHT now. If it is important to you, you’ll find a way… If not, you’ll find an excuse. Which will you find?

I am Passionate Pachyderms, I am PISSED OFF, and I am not going to sit quietly and take it anymore!