American Troops Go Unpaid While The Pentagon Bankrolls Abortions And Ukraine’s Forever War
While America’s military leadership once prioritized the well-being of their troops, today, it seems far more concerned about funding abortions and never-ending proxy wars.
On Friday, Military.com reported that the military has failed to compensate roughly 9,000 National Guardsmen “the bonuses they were promised for signing up” to serve, with some payments having “been missing for years.” According to the report, the Guard is also “tracking an additional 3,900 soldiers who completed their service and left the military without getting any bonus payment, though some may have lost eligibility.”
As noted by the outlet, these bonuses, which can total as high as $20,000, are divvied up over the course of soldiers’ enlistment contracts, with the first half to be distributed after an enlistee completes initial service training. Meanwhile, the second half is “disbursed halfway through soldiers’ first contracts.”
Guard officials claim the usual waiting period to receive the first bonus is six months, although enlistees and their families have indicated “it can take years” to receive the payments.
“I was really relying on this money to help with moving into a new place with my wife,” one soldier told Military.com. “I did my end of things, and this is a really bad introduction to the Army, not taking care of people.”
The main cause of the issue appears to stem from understaffing and mismanagement of a “payment-processing system that has faced multiple long-term catastrophic outages.” According to the outlet, the system’s routine failures have resulted in staffers having to “repeatedly track and process payments manually” for years, prompting delays in payments to Guardsmen.
Despite honorably serving their country, these soldiers’ financial plights are at the bottom of the Biden Pentagon’s to-do list. A day before Military.com dropped its bombshell report, the Defense Department announced it was shipping another multi-million-dollar aid package to Ukraine. Totaling $150 million, the package includes an array of weapons, ammunition, and defense capabilities purportedly aimed at helping Kyiv continue its fight against Moscow.
While Congress and the Biden administration committed more than $113 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars to Ukraine in 2022 alone, that hasn’t stopped the White House from bullying Congress into authorizing even more aid for the Eastern European nation. A little over a week ago, the Biden administration proposed a $105 billion spending package that would force Congress to ship billions more to Ukraine as a package deal with U.S. aid to Israel. In essence, the Biden administration is using Hamas’ attack on Israel to coerce House Republicans into dumping more money into Kyiv’s coffers.
It’s not just subsidizing Ukraine that takes priority over paying U.S. service members, however. The Pentagon is also busy at work bankrolling abortions for its female employees. In February, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the agency would financially cover abortion-related travel expenses for service members and their dependents. This prompted Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville to launch a protest of the policy the following month. Using his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Tuberville has been slow-walking military promotions requiring Senate confirmation.
Despite facing hysterical attacks from congressional Democrats, former intel officials, and high-ranking military members, Tuberville has stood strong in his defense for life and pledged to continue his protest until the Defense Department revokes the policy. While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tacitly admitted he had the power to bring military promotions to the Senate floor the entire time last month after he filed cloture on several Biden nominees, that hasn’t stopped Democrats from trying to change the rules to skirt Tuberville’s holds.
According to The Hill, Senate Democrats and “a handful of Republicans” are scheming behind the scenes to potentially change Senate rules and effectively neuter Tuberville’s protest. The maneuver would purportedly “allow the Senate to move military promotions in a group through the end of 2024.” At least 60 votes would be needed to override a potential filibuster, meaning Democrats would need Republican support to change the rules.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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