They are not "sons and daughters" any more than the rest of us. They are adults who signed up to maim and kill in return for a paycheck.

I'd loose more sleep over DMV employees having their benefits cut personally.

> not framing the conversation with the word "entitlements" to subtly imply that ex soldiers are somehow taking more than they deserve.

"An entitlement is a guarantee of access to something, such as to Social Security, Medicare or welfare benefits, based on established rights or by legislation." [1]

The word got tinged with a pejorative sense in recent years probably because it also has a definition in clinical psychology. We commonly say somebody "has a sense of entitlement".

I would not doubt that its a deliberate Republican talking point to use that word rather than "benefits" or "public assistance" in order to associate it with the psychological definition.

> In clinical psychology and psychiatry, an unrealistic, exaggerated, or rigidly held sense of entitlement may be considered a symptom of narcissistic personality disorder, seen in those who "because of early frustrations...arrogate to themselves the right to demand lifelong reimbursement from fate."

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entitlement

There are plenty of veterans who never were sent overseas to engage in combat, or ended up sitting around in gents playing DS when they were. Why should we handle their heart disease and prostate enlargement differently than a veteran of another government agency?

Keep reading the article. The main thrusts are: there are something like 2 million paper pushers in the defence force (civilians, military, and contractors). And that there's a lot of waste (such as equipment which is ready for deployment, but doesn't actually work).

I doubt the US can cut the support they give soldiers much more. They are already paying close to minimum wage (unlike the admins, who no doubt make a lot more). If they cut much more, they'll pretty much have to start offering prisoners pardons for signing on (which will drive out good candidates, and piss a lot of people off).

> It makes me sick to my stomach thinking of beefing up military capacity while cutting military medical benefits. How about this instead: you sent other people's sons and daughters overseas to be maimed and killed, so now you fucking take care of them.

Why? They're professionals, they knew the risks and accepted the gambles. It's not like you went and conscripted a bunch of poor bastards, or tricked them into it.

It seems to me you either believe that everyone deserves decent health protection - in which case what you decide here has implications for how the national system should run - or you don't. But being hired for soldiering seems an odd point at which to digress from the general rule.

In recent times, in the US, the benefits veterans receive are certainly something they consider going in. Reducing those benefits pretty much turns it into a trick.

Why should professional voluntary soldiers on salary be treated differently than PMCs?

> you sent other people's sons and daughters overseas to be maimed and killed, so now you fucking take care of them

Wouldn't it be nice if Congress had to guarantee $200,000 per year, for life for each person who's been to war?

That should serve to make Congress that much more reluctant to send people to new wars. Unfortunately, with technology advancing so rapidly, they would probably only have that much more incentive to make autonomous killer robots real, and to make massively more drones. I think they're still going for that anyway, just at a slower pace than it would happen with such a law.

If the problem is sending people to be killed, I don't see how a pension for life helps.

Wars would be a lot costlier in the long run, and it would be like basically paying debt on a war you had, for life. But as I said, I fear such a disincentive would actually incentivize them to send more robots to wars.