Have I found a home?

Hello all,

So my brother called me this evening and recommended I check out a website for a lesser known political party, www.newamericanindependent.com. I checked it out and like a majority of what they believe in and stand for. I just may ask to join them and we'll see where things go from there. I'll definately keep you all posted...

I have been in a school for the past few weeks and have also been having some very deep and good discussions/debates with many of my classmates. They have told me that they would post some of the questions that were brought up in our talks (hence my not posting in a few days...still waiting...). I figured I'd mention one of the topics that was brought up this past week, that being military service. Many of those I spoke with were prior military with a few non-prior service, so I was able to talk to both sides of the coin.

Where do I stand on the military? I think it's the best in the world and I would continue to make it so. Cutting back on National Defense is not always the brightest thing to do. Granted, we outspent the USSR during the cold war and ended up building a larger defense. But after we won the cold war, we looked at our forces and saw they were too big. I personally think we downsized too much however. Two ways of thinking were predominant, with neither apparently communicating with each other. The first was since we had such large forces, and not nearly as much of threats anymore, it seemed logical to downsize all of our military force. The second was since we had such large forces, it seemed logical to extend the roles of the military and demand more of them. Unfortunately, both happened. This has pushed our military men and women to extremes. Nobody I've talked to has said the military has it easy. And now we're stretching our forces very thin in countries that we shouldn't be in, all so the oil industry and the weapons manufacturers can make money at the expense of our soldiers lives, their families, and our own defense capability. My solutions to make it better? I'm glad you asked...

Let's start with the military payscale. Under my idea, the first four years of military service will pay next to nothing (bear with me on this one). Then at the five year point, each individual has a decision to make. To stay in or not. If they stay in, then the pay increase will be equivalent to today's paycharts for the military. This will reward those who decide to make a career out of the military. What about those others who decide to get out? Well, Here's my idea: Free college for those personnel. A year for a year payback, meaning if someone is in for two years, then they get two years of college (years one and two). Three for three and Four for four. There are some stipulations to make it not such a blow to our economic situation or to the rich. First, the candidate must get out with an honorable discharge. A full honorable discharge. In today's military, it is common to see someone get out with what's called an "other-than-honorable" discharge, which means they messed up, but not bad enough to get the punishment of a dishonorable discharge. Also, it would be limited to a community college for the first two years and a state college for the third and fourth years. This would still give the prestigious universities the ability to think themselves better than the rest and would give the upper class a place to go away from commoners. Sorry, my sarcasm sometimes gets the better of me. So now, you're probably saying to yourself a couple of questions. Let me guess...

1. That would be a lot of money, so how are we going to pay for the tuition?! First of all, that's why we would pay less of a salary for the first four years. Basically, what we would be paying in basic pay would be going to tuition instead. Even if it costs the government a little more for this venture, it will only better the country by providing college schooling to anyone willing to serve. We could become the best educated nation once again!

2. There will be a lot of military members, so where could we possibly find enough jobs for them to do? Part of the military cutbacks in the 90's eliminated a lot of miltary jobs. But they didn't go away, they just started getting paid from another pocket in Uncle Sam's pants. Civilians are now doing a lot of the jobs that military used to do. Here's an example... When my submarine would pull in from an underway, we required crane services. Civilians operate the cranes. They get ludicrous amounts of money to do what anyone in the military could be trained to do. Jobs are out there, we just need to reinstate them. Again, this would save money and achieve my goal of strengthening our military and educating our population.

Okay, I've been rambling for quite some time now and It's late at night. Not sure if I explained everything properly and clearly. If not, let me know and I'll try again. Until the next time, peace.

Rich