To All Veterans Young and Old Thank You !

[Next Best Thing]

Originally Posted by LSTPK

In my professional life, I can be awarded a hazard pay for working in arbitrarily defined 'dangerous' conditions. Don't get me wrong, the conditions are potentially life-threatening, but not to the point of combat that our veterans underwent.

The amount that I receive is an extra 75 cents per hour. So in a normal eight hour shift (during which I will usually not get any breaks) I will make an extra 6 dollars per day. Before taxes. For danger pay. In conditions where people do get injured to the point where they never are able to work again.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that while society really doesn't have the resources to adequately reward or recognize the hazard that some members risk for the sake of others, they had damn well better make the attempt.

Reasonable response and there's a reason that this happens to people that declaring contrived national holidays, and other meaningless ceremonial acts, do nothing to resolve.

[LSTPK]

Well, I would say that the holiday is only contrived and the ceremony is only meaningless if the participants deem it so. My personal opinion is that honestly recognizing that a debt is owed goes some (very) small way towards payment of that debt.

Mere lip service to the debt can be worse than just ignoring the problem which is what it sounds like you're pondering.

[Next Best Thing]

Originally Posted by LSTPK

Well, I would say that the holiday is only contrived and the ceremony is only meaningless if the participants deem it so. My personal opinion is that honestly recognizing that a debt is owed goes some (very) small way towards payment of that debt.

Mere lip service to the debt can be worse than just ignoring the problem which is what it sounds like you're pondering.

Very very small I would say.

The United States has always devalued military service. I would recommend that anyone with any pre-conceived notions which have been egged on by irrelevant gestures (like National holidays) do some superficial research on the treatment of the Continental Army during and after the Revolutionary War, as a starting point.

[LSTPK]

Not disagreeing on the shameful way they were treated, but I think that had just as much to do with people's tendencies to avoid paying back debts in general than the military specifically.

At that time, much of the armed forces were drawn from the Colonial Militias, and even the Continental Army that endured brutal conditions without pay, supplies, or (often) a vision of how things were going to get better weren't as distinct from the general populace as the modern day military is. So I suspect that the people then felt a lot closer to the Continental Army than we would to US military.

[Next Best Thing]

Militias were state based forces. The term "United States" did not even exist in popular culture. State militia minutemen were notoriously unreliable, George despised them. It's kind of a different topic but the debate about relative values of state militia versus an organized, national army under a formal chain of command supervised by structured organizational rank was almost a metaphor for the political debates occurring during the revolutionary era as pertained to a national government as opposed to a loosely confederated grouping of sovereign states. I doubt more than a few are even a little interested in that however.

I do think relying on government taxation to accrue capital or to accrue a revenue pool with which to disperse wages is going to result in proportionally low salaries. I always wondered why cops and teachers were paid so well, but I suppose in large part their salary is paid by the local tax base which is sometimes a little less resentful with respect to paying wages?

[generalbob]

Blah blah blah....shouldn't we be discussing more important issues like hookers and strippers?

[LSTPK]

Yes, the militia were under trained, and even more poorly supplied and less reliable than the Continental Army which was laughably inexperienced in warfare (marksmanship aside) compared to the British and Hessian troops. My only point was that Colonial forces were much more close to militia all around than regular forces I suspect that identified a lot more closely to them and were less likely to be reluctant to pay back a perceived debt solely on the basis of "it's the military."

As far as the state funding vs federal funding goes, we have Thomas Jefferson to thank for that. Alexander Hamilton had a strong federal economy set up (under George Washington) to pay off all debts incurred during the Revolutionary War (including those to the soldiers and their survivors) that Jefferson dismantled. I would go into his motives, but that would derail the thread, I think

[Next Best Thing]

I promise not to beat this any more to death than I already have, but on the topic of popular opinion of the Continental Army - it was atrocious. Even discount loyalists who of course despised the entire idea of independence from Britain.

George Washington could get support in the form of a team of aides to organize his wartime correspondences into a consolidated accounting, but veterans of the Continental Army never received pensions (half pay for life for those serving "the duration") which were promised to them upon enlistment. Alexander Hamilton proposed that they receive full pay for a period of five years in lieu, but this was rejected also.

The people, at large, completely rejected the efforts of the Continental Army. They just wanted to forget the whole fucking thing and go back to living their lives. State legislatures, for the most part, wanted to go back to governing themselves as sovereign states.

This is the way military veterans were treated.

We can make this all go away by inventing holidays, waving flags, making snot-nosed remarks to those who find this odd, etc. Really?

[LSTPK]

Originally Posted by generalbob

Blah blah blah....shouldn't we be discussing more important issues like hookers and strippers?

I don't know about you, but I'm sure that the source of funding to properly compensate providers is a topic near and dear to almost everyone's heart. And with the thread turning to state funding vs. federal funding we were very nearly there!

[Next Best Thing]

Originally Posted by LSTPK

Yes, the militia were under trained, and even more poorly supplied and less reliable than the Continental Army which was laughably inexperienced in warfare (marksmanship aside) compared to the British and Hessian troops. My only point was that Colonial forces were much more close to militia all around than regular forces I suspect that identified a lot more closely to them and were less likely to be reluctant to pay back a perceived debt solely on the basis of "it's the military."

As far as the state funding vs federal funding goes, we have Thomas Jefferson to thank for that. Alexander Hamilton had a strong federal economy set up (under George Washington) to pay off all debts incurred during the Revolutionary War (including those to the soldiers and their survivors) that Jefferson dismantled. I would go into his motives, but that would derail the thread, I think

I hear you. I am no fan of Jefferson (backstabber, especially to GW and John Adams), Madison (brilliant but a waffler who most likely would have allowed Jefferson to anally rape him if he thought it would make Jefferson happy), or Monroe (probably the least talented and sneakiest of the bunch).

You are also correct about derailing the thread. Usually I don't mind but I think this is interesting only to you and I.

Happy Veteran's Day!!!

[LSTPK]

Originally Posted by Next Best Thing

I promise not to beat this any more to death than I already have, but on the topic of popular opinion of the Continental Army - it was atrocious. Even discount loyalists who of course despised the entire idea of independence from Britain.

George Washington could get support in the form of a team of aides to organize his wartime correspondences into a consolidated accounting, but veterans of the Continental Army never received pensions (half pay for life for those serving "the duration") which were promised to them upon enlistment. Alexander Hamilton proposed that they receive full pay for a period of five years in lieu, but this was rejected also.

The people, at large, completely rejected the efforts of the Continental Army. They just wanted to forget the whole fucking thing and go back to living their lives. State legislatures, for the most part, wanted to go back to governing themselves as sovereign states.

This is the way military veterans were treated.

We can make this all go away by inventing holidays, waving flags, making snot-nosed remarks to those who find this odd, etc. Really?

Yes, the people rejected the idea of the Continental Army because they clung to the idea of the sovereign states. But that's different than saying they rejected the veterans themselves. Absolutely they wanted the whole thing to be over and to go on with their lives, an understandable, if short-sighted and impractical attitude. And the events of the next twenty or so years proved that they couldn't.

Many of the very veterans that they consciously or unconsciously tried to marginalize guided the Colonies and later the Country through the Whiskey Rebellion, the War of 1812 and other military and political crises.

To answer your last statement. No, cheap holidays and flags will not 'solve anything,' but a society that does not acknowledge its debt to those who sacrifice on its behalf and attempt to repay them is training its best and brightest not to intervene when necessary and is hastening its own downfall.

Edit: Stopping my own historical discussion which I also enjoy to not further derail the thread. Happy Veteran's Day

[Carlos Danger]

Never knew I could be so soft and limp. This thrED proved otherwise

[generalbob]

Originally Posted by Carlos Danger

Never knew I could be so soft and limp. This thrED proved otherwise

I remember now why I used to sleep through history class!

[Next Best Thing]

I probably agree with you two more than you think.

The problem with sleeping through history class, is that 10 years later you wake up and find yourself in a foxhole or on aircraft carrier. Or sitting at the front desk in a large building at Fort Meade.

Complaining about how underappreciated US military personnel are.

But I'm with you, really I am.

[edr1322]

Many of you don't know what we do in combat when it pours we are are still are out there strong winds we are there because we are stopping the filth that is trying to steal your freedom and we try to protect other countries so they can have their freedom war is a nightmare that you never wake up from so to all my veteran brothers and sisters I will thank you for standing up with me the negative people put your self in our shoes this we will defend MSGT 30 years