Rick Santorum, Protecting Our Troops
The last speech I heard from Rick Santorum, I heard him to tell me that he would be a leader who will take care of the troops. That was a tone that gave me hope all over again. The last few years that my husband was in the service were absolutely awful. The morale was low, good soldiers were leaving in the masses, funding was putting financial stress on the military budget and the military family. Before my husband deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 there was the risk of a sequestration.
My family of five may not get a paycheck if there was a government shutdown. We had a mortgage, mouths to feed, and bills to pay, the threat of no pay left me a nervous wreck. My husband is about to enter a war zone and not be paid for it. Great job, guys. The budget needed to be fixed but now the military member was a pawn in the game. That is how I felt at the time. The military family did not need that stress when a possible life changing year was already on their plate.
I understood the reasoning behind the sequestration. Things needed to change but the hard workers were the ones being punished because of the deadlock. Why was welfare not being put on the chopping block? The service members already had the price of groceries going up at the commissary, horrid health care (what universal healthcare is), housing allowances were going down, and utilities were being tacked on to the service members housing at times. The changes started adding up and now we are faced with no paychecks. Wonderful! I expect that type of behavior with a leader like President Barack Obama but I will not expect it from Rick Santorum.
There will be changes in the way the military is treated. National security is very important to most conservatives. People tend to forget that over 3,000 people died in 1 day due to 19 Islamic extremists. 3,000 people in 1 day. Let me repeat, 3,000 people in 1 day. Then we have lost thousands of soldiers because there was too much bipartisanship in Washington. Leadership tried to appease the other side and did not strike like we needed to. Things could have been different had we gone in, trampled the enemy, and then left. Things dragged on though and soldiers were staying overseas for 12–18 months at a time. Great friends were killed, blown up, or are now missing body parts. That is the reality of war.
I am worried about the United States standing in the world if we cannot get a leader who understands the urgent need to rebuild our military. We are still at war but the number of soldiers have dwindled. Our country needs a good strong military presence in the world. When we do not, then we see incidents such as 9/11. Our people see that one event can devastate thousands of lives and start wars. Iowans are not near military installations to see the soldiers on a daily basis. In towns such as El Paso, Texas, the presence of soldiers is not an uncommon occurrence. Those residents see that soldiers are here to protect our land from all enemies.
The next leader needs to get our military back to full strength. Stop talking about free college unless that college was earned by military service. Stop talking about free health care unless it was earned by military service. You need to earn what you receive. This is not the land of the FREE for nothing but it is the LAND OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE. Let’s teach our youth the true concept of work. Stopping handing them everything for free and expect they work for what they want.
