Gates has a second more honorable way to go, he could resign and let it be known why he resigned.

Michelle, I don't know what you said, but if it was good enough to be deleted, it must have been the truth.

Agreed.

I have 3 grandsons that have been talking about joining the service. I will do my best to dissuade them. I may just kick their ass if they keep talking about enlisting. I toed the line for over 21 years. Then they put 2nd LTs to replace Chiefs in AC maintenance and everything went to hell. That's when I got out in 88.

There is no honor in following such fools as our current foolish leaders, all the way up to the biggest fool, Obama. And it is a damned shame. The proudest I ever felt was standing in formation at full attention when the national anthem was played. Once again, it is a damned shame.

There will be so many enlisted leaving the service that they may need a draft the next time they want to build up the military.

Then gates should do the honorable thing and resign.

Marvin, were you an officer? Or did you receive wounds to the head that keeps you from thinking straight?

@Ret Soldier. You have to be at least An E5 to get family housing on base and they are very crappy housing. Anyway that i the way it use to be. We lived off base with our families on a small housing and substance allowance. The higher rank I became we did get into a nice 4 plex on base, but you had people living very close to your front door. I use to think much higher of Gates than I do know. They don't have to accept Obama's orders and carry them ut. They can show some backbone and integrety and resign.

ITCS, did you have a law firm help you get Social Security Disability? If you can't work you deserve it and can get it if a law firm helps you. They work for no pay unless they win and then take less than $5,000 of all your back pay you have coming..

Bearcat. Who has the promises written down and signed by the veteran and an officer? I have never seen it or read it on any reenlistment contract and I was in from 67 to 88. The promises were on pamphlets, yes, but if it isn't in a contract it is just propaganda and means nothing.

Doc, I joined in 67 and got out in 88. I was told all the same things about what we would get for life. There were even pamphlets handed out telling of all our great benefits to come. We got some but not all. But no one signed a paper stating that all the promised entitlements were contractual. It was all verbal.

The last few months of my time I was given the job of Squadron reenlistment NCO. That was 1988 and the same type pamphlets were still around. Everyone wanted to reenlist then, so all I did was push papers and noticed that nothing the re-enlistees signed included promised benefits to come. They signed nothing promising them health care for life or anything else. So we were promised these things by word of mouth, no contract was signed by anyone stating we would get all bennies that were promised by reenlistment NCOs or talks during commander's calls by the Squadron Commanders.. The last couple months I was a reenlistment NCO, I still believed what the pamphlets and I were saying as I had heard it repeated for 21 years.

And I honestly think the military and civilian leaders of the earlier years planned to fulfill those promises. But no one was smart enough to see the future of the Government growing much to large and the stupid ideas that Congress pushed through to ruin our economy. Now we are stuck as part of the solution. The verbal promises were pushed away to pay for stupid things like Obama care.

Doc, maybe I should have used the word anger instead of self pity. But they broke no written contracts to us, when they told us of our future Bennies, I think those saying it from congress down were repeating those promises in good faith. They all had the intention of fulfilling those words. But now it is time to trim the fat and the congress is still incompetent, so they trim our bennies as we are low hanging fruit that is easy for them to trim and claim a victory for cutting costs. No matter how minuscule the savings turn out to be.

So Doc, go back and look at all the reenlistment statements/contracts you signed. None of them will mention future bennies. So in the eyes of Congress, no promises were broken because nothing was written down as a contract and signed by both the re-enlistee and the officer who also signed the document with you.

I think most of us are hurt and feel as though we were cheated, and some of us are really feeling sorry for ourselves and pissed off. I don't like it either, but a spoken promise with nothing signed as a contract means nothing. I believe that we and the congress and the heads of all branches of the service honestly thought those verbal promises would be met. But they didn't think we would have become a debtors nation with fools as leaders. This post won't make anyone feel better, but it should explain more of what the verbal promise meant versus those same words written on a contract..

Sorry comrades, but we are all in the same boat even though we all have different issues in our life. We, the military veterans, are easy to steal from and it has always been that way. Go ahead and *****, but you are just wasting good *****ing words. Save them for when you attend a town hall meeting for one of these clowns trying to get re-elected and then give them hell. And keep giving them hell and *****ing until they drag you out into the street to shut you up. Who knows, maybe a national TV crew will video the bullies dragging you out and your story may go national. Anything is possible.

Good luck and remember that God loves us all.