Via Think Progress:
Thanks to ThinkProgress2.
Since that vid talks about the troops, let's talk about not paying them should there be a Repug gummint shutdown.
Again, Think Progress:
One painful consequence of a possible looming government shutdown is that U.S. troops, many of whom are currently stationed and fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, will not get paid. “You could have forces deployed in the field, with their families back home, and no one’s getting paid. And that could be an issue,” one defense department official said.
Could be an issue? Let me say something about that - our soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines mostly don't give a shit about being in harm's way. You can fuck with their chow, fuck with their sleep, send them to shitholes the devil shudders at the prospect of being in, and they will do their duty, give it their all.
Fuck with their pay and they're liable to go on strike. Remember, these days we have a married military. The troops have wives and kids and live off base and have bills to pay. As Gates says, they live from paycheck to paycheck, and fuckin' with their families won't fly.
In my day (read "Once Upon A Time..."), about 99% of us were single and lived in the barracks. In my meteoric rise from a lower-than-whale-shit Private making $73 a month to my lofty final princely sum as an E-4-over-two of $212.50 a month, I never once didn't get paid. We got a place to live, our chow, we could wash our own clothes if we had to and find a free haircut that would satisfy regs if not style, and you'd be surprised how many guys can shave with a worn-out blade (to Marines, pain is weakness leaving the body). All our pay really did for us was let us buy smokes and beer and an occasional civilian cheeseburger and unnecessary luxuries such as shaving cream and starched utilities. The powers-that-be made damn sure we got it. I've stood in line for an hour aboard a ship in the middle of the Nowhere Ocean to get my pittance in cash even though we were six weeks and thousands of miles from anywhere but the ship's store to spend it. You couldn't get into the ship's store for two days after payday but that's another story. You could get in any of a hundred card or dice games of your choice. Heh.
Point is, money wasn't all that important to us other than we had it coming and had better get it, and the Brass made sure we did.
The goddam 'baggers want this government shut down and the hell with supporting the troops. Just collateral damage in their pathetic ideological wet dream.
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