Amanda+Man's+OpEd+Article

Over time the U.S has grown into a great nation due the fact of people having opportunities, religious freedom, free speech, and free press. One of the biggest factors that allowed the United States to be able to stand on its own two feet and to become one of the strongest nations in the whole world is our military. Many men and women have put their lives on the line many times for our country; some have died or been injured and all of them have left a loved one back home. I have great respect for those who have served and are currently serving in our military. Our military is the back bone of our nation so why is the government cutting back on it? I understand that the United States is in huge dept, but it doesn’t matter what the situation is, at no cost should our nations’ protection be declined or be responsible to repay such a huge debt. What is our Commander and Chief of the United States (Obama) thinking? Cutting back on something that holds such importance angers me so much because America has the biggest military and every country knows it. So if we decrease the size and the benefits of the military it might lead the U.S to be overly unprepared for what might come down the road in the future. And we can’t forget that at the means of cutting back it feels like a stab in the back to those who have risked their lives for this country and it makes it seem that those who have lost their lives for this very nation have died in vain.

This issue really hits close to home. Many of my family members and friends have served in the military. My grandfather and Uncle have both served in the navy; my brother – in-law has served 16 years and is currently still serving in the military. Also my mom works for the navy and works beside and is friends with many service men/women and veterans. And now as I’m getting older I have already talked to recruiters about me joining the military also. So having cut backs will not only affect me when it takes place, but it will also affect those I love and who have dedicated their lives for this. To be honest this scares me. I want to join the military, but I want to feel secure and to know that my country has my back. I want to be able to get a higher education also, but that won’t be possible if the branch I am in hasn’t put money aside. Also, I worry about our veterans. If currently service men and women are not using the benefits that were once available how are veterans with PTSD or who have medical bills going to survive this cut? The answer is sadly that they won’t. Many people will be impacted and it will be at the cost of morale.

Without the protection of the military the U.S would not be what it is today. Some people might disagree, but if you look back in history you would find out that if we didn’t have the military do what they do then we would not have the things that we have. The military has done many things for us which includes defending our nation, rescue missions, protecting embassies, and medical assistance to impoverish areas. They put their mission before themselves. If we further go through with cutting back it is only going to hurt the U.S as a whole.

My mom works at Point Mugu Naval Base and she has experience cut backs already. Many people in high places what to shut down Port Hueneme in Oxnard, but many people fought hard and decided to merge it with Point Mugu in order to save Port Hueneme. But that wasn’t enough because at the end of this year many people went through work furlough. This not only affected my family, but also many others. Even with the merging of the two bases people in government still want it to shut it down entirely. If this happens it is going to affect our local economy. Also many people are deciding to retire early because of this. Is this how Americans treat their service men? Military bases are a place to call home for many families and by threatening to take this away is wrong. They have risked everything for us.

On military bases there are commissaries that are basically stores that provide food and so on at lower prices. There has been talk of closing commissaries around the globe in order to save money. But I urge not to because how are people going to get food if the base is secluded. And for those who live in places like Japan the cost of living is probably higher than the U.S. Closing commissaries are just going to cause problems especially for E1’s and E2’s who are not allowed to have cars. If local stores are far away how are they going to get there? This doesn’t make sense. There are other ways to save money than making our military suffer for it.

What happens at the threat of war? If we decrease our military how are we going to be prepared? And we can’t just decrease and then suddenly increase it when it’s necessary because other countries will think that as very suspicious. We need the military just as it. Having the biggest military in the world makes us a big factor when concerning other countries. They know that if they try anything on us that they will be screwed because of how much man power we have. We need to be prepared for what is to come and cutting back will just hinder our nation.

There is never going to be world peace and there are going to be wars in the future so it will be very naïve to those (aka government) who think that it is a smart idea to cut back on our military. Not only are you not thinking about our service men and women, but how this will affect our nations’ well being. Aren’t there other places that we could save money from that will have a lesser impact?