Here's the thing, for me to honestly consider myself principled I gotta be consistent. Your "that's not the reality of the situation" is the same argument democrats use to say that we need to have tax increases, because while sure tax cuts plus spending cuts helps the deficit, reality is that spending cuts will never happen. And much like I tell them "The only reason reality is what that way is because we continue to function, vote, and hold them to standards based on said reality. If we don't demand reality to change, it never will".
So if the military budget gets cut by a small amount and the military tries to screw with necessary items for the troops then we as citizens need to rise up and say "no, get rid of your pet projects, get rid of some of the possible 'luxuries', and stop cutting basic necessities for the soldiers to try and strong arm us into giving you more of our money"
I never said anything about screwing with, "necessities".
I said that the DoD will cut things like, bonuses, soldier pay, dependent housing, troop strengths. The most expensive part of the military, are the troops. As I said before, the quickest and easiest way to cut costs in the military, is to have fewer soldiers. The quickest and easiest way to cut down the number of soldiers, other than just running people off, is to cut out the bells and whistles thereby
encouraging soldiers to get out of the service.
Soldiers are going to eat, have a roof over their heads, be issued uniforms--the
necessities.
However, when the defense budget is cut, everything gets cut across the board--bells and whistles for the soldiers, R&D, training, everything.
When the bells and whistles are cut, soldiers are there, simply because they want to be there, not because their going to end their four-year tour, totally debt free, or because they're getting a bought and paid for college education.
When R&D gets cut, all the super-duper-ass-kickin' weapons systems that makes the United States military the best armed fighting force in the history of the world, may not be there. Ask yourself: how much did it cost to develope the AT-4 anti-tank weapon? The M-60 machine gun? The M-1 main battle tank? The M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle? The Patriot anti-missile missile system? The M-40 sniper rifle? The M-24 sniper rifle? All tried-n-true weapons systems that allow our soldiers to do, "more damage, in less time than the enemy", to, show up, "the firstest, with the mostest", which is the single most important objective of warfare. The M-40 and the M-24, by themselves, ran into the millions.
It's real easy to say, "we're going to get rid of the bad **** and keep the good ****", but that just ain't the way it works. The motis operandi that I described in an earlier post has been used in this country for more than 200 years, now. In 1996, when I got married, took my new bride to Germany and there was no post housing available at the Baumholder Kaserne and we had to pay out the ass--more than what our BAQ covered--to rent a ****hole apartment, off post, where the hell were you?? Didn't see ya'll risin' up then!!!
The long and the short of it, is that when American sons and daughters are coming home in body bags, everyone suddenly gives a **** about our service members. Any other time, ya'll don't know and ya'll don't care.