January 7, 2014
Editor
Wall Street Journal
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Dear Editor,
Your January 7 editorial “No Good Reform Goes Unpunished” espouses a remarkably uninformed
position.
Do your homework and check the facts before you print. The Pentagon’s personnel costs are not
spiraling out of control – they have consumed roughly 33% of the DoD budget for the past 30 years
and recently have actually started to decline. TRICARE fees have increased roughly 16% since 1994
and will increase at the rate of inflation every year.
The past decade of unprecedented demands and sacrifices highlights how radically different military
service conditions are from civilian life. Characterizing earned military benefits as being entangled in
the “politics of entitlements” and “eroding military muscle” is profoundly disingenuous.
More disturbing is asserting that military retirement benefits should be slashed to avoid establishing a
“bloated appendage of the welfare state” – military retirement is anything but a welfare program.
Without existing military career incentives over the past 12 years of protracted wartime conditions the
sustainment of the all-volunteer force would have been placed at serious risk.
Fortunately members of Congress consistently have recognized the cost of sustaining the current
military career incentive package is far more acceptable and affordable than the alternative.
Sincerely,