There are a bunch of reasons, but the recent Storm the Hill event from the seemingly well-intended Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America highlights the main issue I have. To sum it all up, IAVA is about turning veterans in welfare cases in which everything will be handed to us on a silver spoon with little or no effort on our part. All I ever hear from IAVA is how we should be given more for less while the country continues to go into debt trying to finance all the wonderful little programs, benefits, and payments for which they are advocating.

A perfect example of this is the whole Stop-Loss pay issue! When military personnel enlist into the military, they sign a contract that obligates them to eight years of service that is a combination of active and IRR service. As most people are aware, a lot of service members were stop-lossed the past few years and Congress passed a law that required the Department of Defense to pay troops help beyond their active duty service obligation about $500 per month. Read what the DD Form 4 (the enlistment contract) says in quite plain, easy to read English:

10. MILITARY SERVICE OBLIGATION, SERVICE ON ACTIVE DUTY AND STOP-LOSS FOR ALL MEMBERS OF THE ACTIVE
AND RESERVE COMPONENTS, INCLUDING THE NATIONAL GUARD.

a. FOR ALL ENLISTEES: If this is my initial enlistment, I must serve a total of eight (8) years, unless I am sooner discharged or otherwise extended by the appropriate authority. This eight year service requirement is called the Military Service Obligation. Any part of that service not served on active duty must be served in the Reserve Component of the service in which I have enlisted. If this is a reenlistment, I must serve the number of years specified in this agreement, unless I am sooner discharged or otherwise extended by the appropriate authority. Some laws that affect when I may be ordered to serve on active duty, the length of my service on active duty, and the length of my service in the Reserve Component, even beyond the eight years of my Military Service Obligation, are discussed in the following paragraphs.

b. I understand that I can be ordered to active duty at any time while I am a member of the DEP. In a time of war, my enlistment may be extended without my consent for the duration of the war and for six months after its end (10 U.S.C. 506, 12103(c)).

In effect, what groups like IAVA and our fiscally irresponsible government is doing in passing legislation that costs taxpayers money they shouldn’t have to pay (except in certain rare instances I’ll explain later) is telling troops they don’t have to live up to their contracts – contracts they VOLUNTARILY signed when they enlisted!

Then there’s the most recent IAVA number one priority, the Veteran Employment Transition Act of 2011. It mandates that the military do what it already does and provide employment briefings and opportunities to troops leaving military service. The problem is that many troops simply don’t go to these briefings, don’t take notes when they do go to these briefings, or just go to “check the block” to outprocess. Then, they get out and wonder why the hell it’s so hard to find a job! Should have stayed awake in that briefing, buttmunch!

The bill also provides for a “work opportunity tax credit” to businesses that hire veterans. That’s fine and dandy except the government should be taking away tax credits instead of adding more considering we’re over $14 trillion in debt and climbing at a rate of almost $2 trillion annually! The reality is that because many troops DON’T take advantage of the many pre-separation programs ALREADY IN PLACE, they get out and find themselves lost. That isn’t my fault and it isn’t the fault of the taxpayer the number one focus of troops getting out of the military is…wait for it…getting out of the military!

While IN the military, many of these troops didn’t take advantage of the $7500 per year offered to them for free for education (myself included). They didn’t take advantage of the quarterly job fairs that most military bases and towns offer to troops. They didn’t send out applications to prospective companies in the months leading up to their departure. It’s a copout to say that Soldiers didn’t have an opportunity to do any of this stuff while active. It is true that it does happen in limited cases, but for the most part the posts I’ve been on make these briefings mandatory already.

But, what does IAVA want? IAVA wants you and me to suck up the cost of hiring a veteran just so a veteran can be hired and take advantage of tax incentives. Those tax incentives are great for the short term, but when the economy tanks again, they have no incentive to maintain them. In reality, a company can hire a veteran, take the tax credit, and fire a veteran without penalty – while still getting the tax credit. Meanwhile, we’ll pay for it with inflation and higher tax burdens.

I’m all for taking care of troops, but I can tell you as a Soldier – we’re being taken care of!! We don’t need to be coddled to. IAVA wants to end the supposed 20% unemployment rate of veterans.

I say to veterans, “get off your ass and stop being so lazy!” It’s the same thing I tell all the leeches sucking from the government teet of unemployment benefits and joblessness. If there isn’t work, use the ethics and values the military taught you and MAKE WORK!! Go door to door and mow lawns while waiting on those job interviews. Find a local farm that is ALWAYS in need of additional hands!

I refuse to support groups, especially “veterans” groups that basically make victims out of veterans. We’re not hopeless people who need handouts.

Yes, it’s a good gesture to our troops and I know that we’ve sacrificed more for this country than most people, but that doesn’t give us a right to rest on our laurels and have everything handed to us for the rest of our lives. And THAT is what I resent most about IAVA (in addition to its blatantly liberal agenda). One just needs to look at their last “report card” of congressmen and the fact that they are quite well funded and supported by the Huffington Post and MoveOn to understand that. And that is a Soldier’s Perspective that I’m sure I’ll have a lot of disagreement about. Forgive me for thinking about the country I’m defending instead of myself.

Ya know, if veterans really wanted to roll in the dough, they should take a page out of Paul Reickhoff’s book and just start a veteran’s organization and get paid from that! Seems that living off the backs of veterans and their supporters is working well for him.