Cutting military benefits a bad idea

James O’Connor, Henderson

Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

With great interest and concern, I recently read about Congress wanting to cut the medical benefits for retired military. I believe this would be a huge mistake.

They are already talking about changing military retired pay to a 401(k) program of some kind. Cutting retired military benefits is not the way to balance the budget. Retirement pay and medical benefits are the primary reason people like myself chose to make the military a career. It surly wasn’t the pay, which has always been well below that of the public sector, or the six to 12 deployments, when I was away from home and family.

The senior enlisted and officer corps are who give the new enlistees their training and leadership, making us the strongest military in the world. If you keep taking away the benefits of a 20-year retirement you will lose a lot of the senior leadership that is so vital to our success as a fighting force.

One thing I did fail to notice in the proposal: How much are members of Congress willing to cut their benefits? I think I read somewhere that members of Congress can get a pension after five years of service while members of the military must serve 20, yet I have seen no mention of a reduction of benefits for members of Congress. God knows that the military is doing a better job than the knuckleheads we have put in Congress.