A cost to the nation

Inattention to troop needs harmful for defense

An Army travels on its stomach, but our budgetary inattention has left us with too few stomachs and too little in them. And it’s not just the Army.

Counting reserve goals, only the Marine Corps and the Space Force met their 2022 recruiting goals, leaving even the Coast Guard short. The causes are many.

A Department of Defense study found a record low 23% of young people (18-24) fully qualify for military service and only about 9%, or 623,000, say they might consider joining. The combined recruiting goal for the services was nearly 150,000. Obviously, we need to expand the number of people eligible and willing to consider the military.

An NBC report cites several obstacles to joining the military, including the certainty of deployment and relatively low pay, cut by 3% from inflation last year. And those on active duty already (or in the reserves or National Guard, about to deploy) face further challenges. Young soldiers often earn below poverty level. The Feeding America organization stated one-third of students at Department of Defense schools — primary and secondary schools for children of military personnel — were eligible for free and reduced-price lunches during the 2018-19 school year. A recent DOD study estimates that almost one-fourth of active-duty members suffer from food insecurity.

Some hardships are unavoidable. Military service is different from civilian employment, a difference best summarized as the pledge by military service members to support the Constitution while giving up the freedom to choose when, where, or why they are deployed.

Military service means separation from friends and family and the potential for extreme physical and mental hardships or death. Additionally, during a conflict the government can extend length of service regardless of one’s contract. The military assigns members where there is a need; the service member’s and family’s needs are not the determining factor. The result is continual family upheavals, separations and hardships. Spouses struggle to find employment at all, much less any commensurate with their qualifications. Children find their schooling interrupted, sometimes in mid-year.

After Vietnam, our country ended the draft and created an all-volunteer military, significantly increasing the quality of our armed forces. Russia’s recent performance using conscripts, mercenaries and prisoners to fill their ranks highlights the importance of our men and women in uniform. If we wish to maintain an all-volunteer defense force, we must fund it adequately. At present we do not.

We need a defense budget that goes to defense. After all, defense is one of the few federal budget categories items that is actually in the Constitution. Yet about about one-seventh of the current budget goes to non-defense items, according to a recent American Enterprise Institute study. Such items as environmental restoration and breast cancer research are tacked onto the budget because it’s must-pass legislation. Many of these expenditures are worthwhile, but none provide for the common defense. We actually spend only about 12% of the federal budget on defense.

Defense research and development, education and training, operations, facilities, weapons, munitions and equipment all need adequate funds and affect both our security and members’ satisfaction with service. Only R&D is possibly adequately funded. These areas are critical to a functioning military, but are useless without enough trained soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen.

We must make it easier for young people to want to endure the unavoidable hardships by giving them what they need to succeed. In addition to weapons, equipment, adequate training and facilities, providing them better-than-poverty-level pay should be a given.

Although the 2023 Defense Budget reflects an increase, some of which will go to a pay raise, it is not enough. The budget does not reflect the reality of the world or an adequate strategy for dealing with that reality.

The war in Ukraine is costing us, but the cost is much less than allowing Russia to win and threaten former USSR members who are now NATO countries. Our dribbling support for Ukraine should be increased for our own self-interests as well as for the Ukrainians. Obviously supporting Ukraine is significantly less expensive in money and in American lives than deploying U.S. forces to a NATO-Russia war.

China continually threatens the Pacific and pursues global ambitions. North Korea and Iran are growing threats. The world is not a nice place.

Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has awakened several European countries to their previous inattention to defense. It should awaken us to our defense needs as well.