It might be necessary to cut the Defense Department budget, but cuts to military career incentives could have dire consequences, according to the Military Officers Association of America.

Retired Air Force Colonel Steve Strobridge, the Association’s director of Government Relations, co-authored a column in the October edition of the Association magazine in which he warns that the country should not have to re-learn the terrible lessons of the 1970s and 1990s when military retention and readiness were compromised by cuts in key military career incentives.

The military is prepared to help fix decades of deficit spending, but Strobridge argued that it is important to remember the sacrifices that warfighters have already made.

The country has offered an exceptional retirement benefits package as the primary tool to induce generations of service members and families to endure those extraordinary sacrifices for 20 or 30 years, he said. Without it, the United States simply couldn’t have sustained the career force for the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Therefore when the country starts allocating fair shares of budget cuts in the name of national fiscal sacrifice, the Military Officer Association argues that it is important to acknowledge the up-front contributions already prepaid by the military community.

This story is part of Federal News Radio’s daily DoD Report brought to you by Dell. For more defense news, click here.

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.