Bipartisan Defense Experts Urge Congress, Sec Def Hagel To Close Bases, Change DoD Pay

http://breakingdefense.com/2013/06/03/bipartisan-thinktank-defense-experts-urge-congress-sec-def-hagel-to-close-bases-change-dod-pay/

Bipartisan Defense Experts Urge Congress, Sec Def Hagel To Close Bases, Change DoD Pay
By Colin Clark on June 03, 2013 at 8:13 AM

CAPITOL HILL: In an extraordinary letter to defense lawmakers and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, experts from nine Washington think tanks on the left and the right call for fundamental fixes to the defense budgets that, left undone, “threaten the health and long-term viability of America’s volunteer military.”

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Mackenzie Eaglen, defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute, offered the most concise summary of the enormous problems faced by the Pentagon as sequestration begins to bite and the drawdown from Afghanistan accelerates.

Law and policy makers must choose between two promises we make to the American military. First, and probably most important, is the nation’s pledge to always ensure they are not in fair fight. That means they must have the best weapons, the finest training and the most responsive intelligence and materiel support. The other promise: we will pay you decently and provide benefits to ensure our warriors are decently cared for and do not have to live in penury after serving their country and risking their lives.

“In the interests of preserving one set of perceived promoses we are risking another set of promises,” Eaglen argued. Her point was that pay and benefits are not sacred, nor can they be viewed in isolation. Providing a soldier with the best gun, the best tank, the best plane, the best intelligence, the best body armor and the best training to use them to greatest effect is a somber commitment that may be even more important to the soldier’s life and well being, not to mention to the nation as a whole.