yourviews
MILITARY OFFICER
MARCH 2011 $4.75 THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF MOAA | ONE POWERFUL VOICE®
Trust Engender
Women on the front lines bridge cultural differences to solve challenges facing combat commanders 86
LIVING HISTORY MOAA members teach students what it means to be a veteran 44
HIGH STAKES ON NATIONAL DEFICIT Find out how specific proposals on the table might affect you 80
INSERT: BROWSE A LIST OF MORE THAN 80 RETIREMENT COMMUNITIES
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Health Care Benefits When my husband joined the U.S. Air Force and was told of the benefits he would receive by committing himself to a career with the military, one of them was free health care for him and his spouse for the rest of their lives. Well … that is, except that they would have to pay for TRICARE be- fore age 65 and then, at age 65, Medicare. Naturally, no one mentioned that his
federal civilians to the service of the military.
You cannot compare the service of
—Capt. William D. Geinzer, USA-Ret.
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job was pretty hazardous. That was a given, especially when he began flying over enemy territory, risking being shot down in his little airplane, as were many of his friends. Ultimately, he gave his life for his country in the form of a deadly cancer related to Agent Orange. I’m not sure why folks who avoided mili- tary service don’t realize a few basic things: • The U.S. government is a military per- son’s employer. • Subsidized health care is a benefit pro- vided by the employer. • Military people pay for their benefits with hard-earned cash and their lives. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if those folks who so cynically dismiss what they con- sider to be unnecessary expenditures for the military had their hard-earned benefits taken from them?
—Kathleen Richardson Bradenton, Fla.
You cannot compare the service of federal civilians to the service of the military. I have great respect for all government em- ployees. Most of my military career I had federal civilians working for me, and they were all professional and hard-working. Shall we look at some of the differences?
Civilians work a 40-hour week; anything over that is [compensatory] time or over- time pay. Ever hear of the military working a 40-hour week? I have never heard of a ci- vilian who had to pass a PT test and weigh- in to keep [his or her] job. Civilians can tell
14 MILITARY OFFICER MAY 2011
their boss to go to hell and quit. Civilians do not get separated from their families and sent overseas without agreeing to it. I can go on and on, but the point is made. —Capt. William D. Geinzer, USA-Ret. via e-mail
Protecting the Flag This is in support of the letter from Estelle Austin [Your Views, March 2011] concern- ing MOAA’s support of an amendment to prohibit burning of the flag. When I was a kid, my father showed me
how to raise, fly (on a knotted old pine flag- pole in Maine), lower, and fold the flag. As a retired officer I am as patriotic as the next guy, and I fly the flag daily, but please, let’s drop such dead-end notions. If we start tacking “police state” amendments onto the Constitution, we lose our nobility as a na- tion and we open Pandora’s box. There is no way you can enforce such an amendment, for one thing. American flags can be burned (in a proper manner) when they have reached the end of their “service lives.” … How about an amendment prohib- iting the wearing of the flag on T-shirts? Or on naked bodies? We could do nothing, in any case, about angry flag-burners in foreign countries, who would take extra pleasure in the knowledge that they were violating an amendment to our Constitution. That lovely 13-striped flag stands for
many great things, including tolerance. Let’s limit amendments to the Constitution to broad, important concepts like rights and standards. Ms. Austin is right: We don’t need an amendment by Congress to teach us what we all know and honor. —Cmdr. A.E. Norton, USN-Ret. via e-mail
Colorado Correction [“Retire to the Rockies,” March 2011] men- tioned, in relation to Colorado, “All resi- dents over age 65 can get rebates of up $600
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