By T.K. Trix
Copyright©1999

While a person is active duty, he/she is taken care of even though the work is thankless, arduous and at times dangerous. Once you retire, you are forgotten and a bother. A good analogy is the insurance company that says "you are in good hands with ********." Once you retire, the hands open up and you are in free fall.

Yes, you get a retirement check, a quarterly newsletter and PX/Commissary benefits. Heath care? Now that is a different matter. The health care system was revamped (or, so they make you think), given a fancy name like Prime Plus and then you are charged for it. To make matters worse, the PR people were out in force with advertisements, snazzy little films and propaganda that would have made the Nazis' proud to convince the retirees that this is "a good thing". Some fell for the lies, most didn't.

The bottom line is while serving our country, we were under the impression and led to believe that we would have health care for ourselves and our families and that promise was broken due to Congress trying to save money. It's ironic, really, the country throws away millions on deploying troops overseas in sovereign nations, attacks other nations for reasons that are debatable and puts our troops under NATO and the U.N. (the ultimate embarrassment). Then when they are finished with the soldier, sailor and airman...it's goodbye and good riddance.