# In the government, we support the troops --- by lying to them. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 19, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927 "2005-10-19T16:29:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![smartguysmile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@smartguysmile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smartguysmile)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2005, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/21 "2005-10-19T23:28:08Z")
Web site of US Court of Fed. Claims say it handle military pay issue. Maybe you are liar here? ---
**Author:** ![aamco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@aamco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aamco)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2005, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/22 "2005-10-19T23:29:11Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > in conclusion: read the fucking artcle. Uh oh! > [@News Tribune](#): > > Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, confirmed the bonuses had been canceled, saying they violated Pentagon policies because they duplicated other programs. **She said Guard and Reserve members would be eligible for other bonuses.** ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2005, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/23 "2005-10-19T23:37:10Z")
> [@aamco](#): > > Uh oh! I’m eligible to win the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes but I don’t see Ed Mcmahon at my door. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/24 "2005-10-20T00:27:49Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > I’m eligible to win the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes but I don’t see Ed Mcmahon at my door. Check the bushes. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/25 "2005-10-20T00:36:07Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Check the bushes. the Bushes have the checks? the bastids! ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/26 "2005-10-20T00:37:29Z")
> [@wring](#): > > the Bushes have the checks? the bastids! Hey, they have to make up the deficit somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Loblaw\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@Bob\_Loblaw\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Loblaw_1)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/27 "2005-10-20T01:13:45Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > [Why would anybody believe a fucking word that comes out of anybody’s mouth either at the Pentagon or the White House?](http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/5258954p-4774126c.html) > Yeah, I’m bashing. Bash bash bash the bastards that got us into this war and then can’t even come through on promises given to the men and women who are risking their lives for the lying bastards. Give it up and bring them home. Oh you awful Bush basher! Your knee jerk hatred of Bush has caused me to reconsider ever voting for a Democrat again, and I supported Kerry in 04. Why you all have to pile on Bush and not read the previous posts and understand and get down with my way of seeing things is just tinfoil hat skadoo! Bush and the government are not responsible for all the bad things that happen in the world, even the ones they indirectly and directly caused by attempting to cause them: some things are just the fault of the terrorists and their fellow travellers, namely, people who hate Bush! How un-Christian of them, can’t they see why gynocolgists get bombed and must specialize their practice. The howdy doody usual suspects can’t prove anything because I believe what I say and that no one saying otherwise makes the avian flu toting backlash against Tom Delay’s bogus indictment by a partisan hack a worthwhile thingy. Honor and integrity are the watchwords of the Republican party, and y’all better watch out, because Clinton lied and people died of shame. That fuggin’ Ted Kennedy was in a drunk driving accident that killed his passenger 36 years ago, and his is still fat and drunk and oh so hatable. It is okay to hate Ted Kennedy, but not George Bush because Ted Kennedy is a liberal from Taxachusettes: meaning he would be for liberty and generous form of goverment that taxes rich people like himself at a higher rate than poor people who work. Damn, it’s 11:00 am and time for all welfare recipients to wake up, think I’ll give little jingle to my buddy Hal Burton, who likes to live on the dole. It’s all the fault of those bleeding heart damn liberals who expect the government to keep it’s promises to our soldiers. Damnit, we want to give them their sigining bonuses on discharge so they don’t blow it on whores, and if they don’t live long enough, then charge their families for the boots that they leave in country, along with the blown off feet in them. Youse goes to wars of choice with the unprepared army blow job Bill left you, not the outsourced to crony corporations army you’d like to raid the treasury. Can I get an AMEN! Amen! Because war, uh-huh, what’s it good for? Profiteering, that’s what!! ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/28 "2005-10-20T01:21:33Z")
**Bob** - just a suggestion. paragraph breaks are a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Loblaw\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@Bob\_Loblaw\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Loblaw_1)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/29 "2005-10-20T01:25:31Z")
> [@wring](#): > > **Bob** - just a suggestion. paragraph breaks are a good thing. It’s artsy fartsy satire, so I was going for a Joyce stream of consciousness sort of thing and rejected breaks because that would make it semi-articulate. I actually had to resist. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/30 "2005-10-20T01:27:48Z")
**Bob** - just a suggestion. Lithium is a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/31 "2005-10-20T01:37:30Z")
Here’s what the article doesn’t make clear, and what I need to know before I reach a decision on this. If some servicemen and women reenlisted and at the time were promised a bonus for reenlisting, that promise was in their reenlistment papers and they were paid the bonus and at a later date the DoD decided to stop giving that bonus to people who reenlisted from that point forward, then I have no problem with that at all. If said service people were promised a bonus, and later it was determined that offering that bonus was against the rules and the DoD is replacing those bonuses with other ones that total the same amount of money, well, thats weird but about par for the course for a large government bureaucracy. If, however, those people reenlisted under the condition that they receive a bonus, and are now being told TSOL, no bonus will be paid, than the DoD drones responsible should be boiled in oil and the bonuses should be paid in full. It’s just not clear from the article which scenario is the actual one. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/32 "2005-10-20T01:46:08Z")
I agree with that. The article is a model of muddled thinking, so it is hard to know whether Senator Murray’s outrage is well placed or not. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/33 "2005-10-20T02:13:13Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > **Bob** - just a suggestion. Lithium is a good thing. It’s all right, but I always thought Pearl Jam was the better band. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/34 "2005-10-20T02:53:28Z")
> [@](#): > > **Mr. Moto** : Okay, so we have a member of Congress going ballistic on the basis of very incomplete information. What would have been a more appropriate response? It seems to me that the Senator is “going ballistic” for all the right reasons: > [@](#): > > From the linked article: The Pentagon has reneged on its offer to pay a $15,000 bonus to members of the National Guard and Army Reserve who agree to extend their enlistments by six years… In your own words: > [@](#): > > I’ve been on the receiving side of military pay, where fuckups abound. and \ > [@](#): > > Reenlistment bonuses aren’t guaranteed, and are typically selectively used to keep personnel strength high in critical skill sets. Apparently the Senator does not tolerate the use of selective lying to entice the troops (that we honor in word but not in deed) to sacrifice still more for their country. But she doesn’t just _complain_ about the “muddled” situation and “incomplete information.” She does what a responsible legislator does. She is attempting to find out who is responsible for the problem and to resolve it: 1. After learning that the bonus program had been cancelled, she wrote officials of the Pentagon’s National Guard Bureau demanding an immediate explanation. 2. Donna Warren, the National Guard Bureau’s congressional liaison, responded to Murray saying that the bonus program had been stopped by order of the Office of Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs because regulations prohibited such bonuses. She spent all of two paragraphs in her explanation. 3. Earlier this month Senator Murray wrote Thomas Hall, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs. (I assume she is going through channels.) Murray asked not only for a further explanation, but also asked Hall to reverse himself and reinstate the bonus program. If that is what “going ballistic” looks like, I wish that more of our legislators would follow suit to see that our troops are treated with the respect and bonuses they deserve and are promised. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/35 "2005-10-20T02:55:32Z")
When I was in the Army about the only people you had a bigger problem with than the people shooting at you were the bureaucrats back in Washington that continually screwed you over. I see time doesn’t change some things ;). ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Loblaw\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@Bob\_Loblaw\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Loblaw_1)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/36 "2005-10-20T03:05:36Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > **Bob** - just a suggestion. Lithium is a good thing. Lithium is a great thing. Number 3 in the periodic table, the name of a great song. Oh, that reminds me, I’ve got to take my vitamins. ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/37 "2005-10-20T03:25:58Z")
> [@Bob Loblaw](#): > > Oh you awful Bush basher! Your knee jerk hatred of Bush has caused me to reconsider ever voting for a Democrat again, and I supported Kerry in 04. \ For what little it’s worth, _I_ thought it was funny. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/38 "2005-10-20T03:29:52Z")
The referenced article in the OP has this info: > [@](#): > > A Pentagon spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, confirmed the bonuses had been canceled, saying they violated Pentagon policies because they duplicated other programs. She said Guard and Reserve members would be eligible for other bonuses. I went looking for confirmation of this, and found it in the [Army Times.](http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1146032.php) > [@](#): > > The Army has renewed a re-up bonus program that features tax-free cash payments of up to $15,000 for active component specialists, sergeants and staff sergeants who extend their careers while deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. > > A similar program for deployed National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers also remains in effect. Under that plan, reservists can receive up to $7,500 for a three-year re-enlistment, or $15,000 for a six-year service extension. This looks like a very minor matter to me, as a great many soldiers appear to be eligible for the bonuses - including the aforementioned National Guardsmen. Whether a particular soldier gets money or not, I can’t say. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Loblaw\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@Bob\_Loblaw\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Loblaw_1)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/39 "2005-10-20T03:54:06Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > This looks like a very minor matter to me, as a great many soldiers appear to be eligible for the bonuses - including the aforementioned National Guardsmen. Whether a particular soldier gets money or not, I can’t say. It is a very minor matter, it’s not my money except in the sense that it comes from my tax dollars. Shit, I’ve got mine and I couldn’t give a crap if someone else gets their, and if it comes from my tax dollars, I’d prefer they didn’t get it: that’s more money for war profiteering contractors to get grossly overpaid on no-bid contracts with. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2005, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927/40 "2005-10-20T11:04:09Z")
> [@Bob Loblaw](#): > > It is a very minor matter, it’s not my money except in the sense that it comes from my tax dollars. Shit, I’ve got mine and I couldn’t give a crap if someone else gets their, and if it comes from my tax dollars, I’d prefer they didn’t get it: that’s more money for war profiteering contractors to get grossly overpaid on no-bid contracts with. From Mr. Motos link. > [@](#): > > A similar program for deployed National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers also remains in effect. **Under that plan, reservists can receive up to $7,500 for a three-year re-enlistment, or $15,000 for a six-year service extension**. Dude, they’re getting the $15,000 for the six year re-enlistment. That’s what they were offered and that is what they are getting. It turned out the program was a duplicate. That’s why they cancelled it. Relax. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-the-government-we-support-the-troops-by-lying-to-them/326927.md?page=3)