Military Families For Obama - Not

Every person who is connected to someone in the National Guard or a Reserve Unit should think long and hard before they vote. They should shut out the talk from both sides and do their own research because the lives of their beloved military member may be at stake.

When President Clinton was in charge he cut our standing troop level in by nearly half. He cut our military from well over 700,000 strong to less then 400,000. He cut off nearly all purchases of “hardened” Hummers for the army. He cut funding for army choppers, APCs, and everything needed by our “troops on the ground.”

The Navy was gutted of ships that support the Army and Marine segments of our military. The Air Force was gutted. He even gutted the Coast Guard to the point they could not patrol our shores on the same basis as they had before because they could not purchase the fuel.

Some advanced weapons systems still in development stage were mothballed. Other proposed systems where killed before prototypes could be even built. This resulted in the deaths of troops in Iraq because they where not available.

We, the general public never paid attention, as Clinton took this money and more to finance his social projects. Congress, from both sides of the isle went along with this. Enough Republicans joined Democrats to allow this to happen. We made a mistake, but do we want to make it again? There is balance between both but gutting is not the way.

We can argue the point of the Iraq war but the real discussion is do we have a military that can provide our troops the best and afford them to carry out their mission.

While Obama has said he will add fewer then 80,000 full time military, it would not cover our needs of today. We still would be rotating Guard and Reserve units through the Arab world. Maybe each member would serve one less tour of duty, but we still would be ripping them from their homes, families, and jobs. This was never the purpose or design of these support units to be mainline front line full time troops.

Under Obama’s plan he would allow little spending on new advanced weapons to protect our military troops. It would be, what you have is what you get!

Obama’s says he will cancel contracts on “wasteful” weapons systems. Everyone of the new advanced weapon systems can be lumped into such. It all falls on the eyes of the beholder. Obama has no background, concept, or any advisor on his staff that would be qualified to understand such systems. This is life and death and not one of picking something off the shelf that looks nice!

Keep in mind Clinton cut funding for the “predator” unmanned vehicle. Had he not done this, the weapon system would have continued to be advanced and would have been in the hands of our troops when the war started. It saddens me to think of the dozens and maybe hundreds of Americans that would be alive if Clinton had not gutted the spending on just this project.

Obama’s entire message to the voters is social programs. Pick up a copy of his platform or go to his website and read up. Please read it from one end to the other. He promises something to everyone and tells you 5% of the taxpayers is going to pick up the entire price tag. You decide if that is even possible and then vote. Everyone is not going to get something and more then 5% of taxpayers are going to pay for it.

One of the few projects he supports is the new refueling plane. One has to wonder if he supports it so much because Boeing’s office in Chicago, his home district?