Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

There is an item on Military.com about vet benefits. One of the issues is that there is a large shortfall in the money to support the VA and pay the benefits to the veterans. In the article it says, we as a nation, borrow money to go to war. We are in agreements that make it necessary for us to honor those agreements so we have to borrow to support.
The fact that we supported the Gulf War, Desert Shield/Desert Storm and paid for all that out of our funds still bothers me. There is something about not supporting monarchies written somewhere. The fact that Kuwait has enough money to allow all the nation’s citizens to not work and have an allowance says that they have enough to pay for our support, which it seems they did not.
Is that being picky? Those of us that were sent there were not given an option nor were we paid extra as far as I know. Not like hired soldiers would have been paid at least. Point being maybe our shortfalls could be eased by requesting some pay back on our involvement. Just a thought.
Should we abandon those that we have agreements with? That is not the answer if we wish to maintain our status in the world. However, when those that have been helped are recovered and on stable footing again, repayment of some of the costs does not seem like a big ask.
The other source of the money needed to support those that have served should be coming from the pockets of the arms and ammunition companies that always make huge amounts of money from war. Those profits never seem to slow down because these companies have people in Congress that seem to be willing to involve us in every little conflict no matter how big or how far removed from our security it might be.
After we have gone to war, lost some folks and injured a bunch more they come home and are denied benefits and the dealers are given tax breaks. Somehow that does not seem fair. Maybe rather than asking the nations we helped we should be taking a percentage from the arms dealers, a much bigger percentage than we are now. Radical thinking for sure