It should be lower.

When was the last time you worked a holiday, because someone had to, without getting paid overtime? When was the last time you stood watch on a weekend? When was the last time you were getting shot at while your child was being born? When was the last time you were away from your family living in a tent for 6 months? When was the last time you were forced to move just after your son made captain of his high school football team?

Military retirees have done all this and more. Sure it's the life we chose, but we sucked it up because we love our country and were told to expect certain benefits.

The military, as MOAA puts it so well, already paid.

Recruitment and retention are down, not because of the war, but because today's military sees the way the country is treating their predecessors.

Most of the rest of us have already suffered and survived our managed health care costs tripling, etc over the past ten years.

I don't understand why anyone pays any attention to Bush's speeches, except for the melancholy pleasure of pointing out their divorce from reality.

This will probably in retrospect be considered an incredibly bone-headed proposal by the Defense Department (and proposals like this are instigated by the political appointees in the DoD). We care about the soldiers, until they retire, then we renege on decades old promises. This has the potential of being a major gaffe, with lots of sound bites about throwing away old soldiers and sailors.

Listen, this is not the time to be criticizing the military. WE ARE AT WAR. This type of drivel undermines the confidence of the troops and does nothing but assist the terrorists. We cannot stop until we achieve total victory against the terrorists. Criticism hurts the war effort.

It is a pretty huge increase, but the amounts are still well below what most of us pay.

My main issue is that we often seem to find reneging on promises to vets as something acceptable. My husband is a disabled vet, but because of where we live, and the fact that the VA hospital in our area is understaffed, my husband can't even get the benefits he was promised, in the end it is far easier to use our private insurance than to use the VA system.

I suspect some number crunchers realize if they make medical difficult enough for retirees and disabled veterans, they can get them to shift the expenses into the private sector. That is what we have done, and I am willing to bet we aren't the only ones.

One thing you do is cut health care benefits for military retirees.