[QUOTE="nocoolnamejim"] Men and women who served their country faithfully in the armed forces and who were later dismissed based on something that had nothing at all to due with their military service get back pay for many years.
Storm_Marine
And the thing is, breaking military rules by definition has something to do with their military service. The military has a huge amount absurd rules and when you join it, you should be expected to follow them. Like it or not.
Just throwing it out there... The rule was "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". Basically, you could serve in the armed forces if you were gay so long as nobody knew it. Your assumption in your response is that individuals who were discharged under DADT DELIBERATELY broke that rule. In other words, that ALL of them joined the armed forces so they could then make a devious social statement by revealing their true colors like a wrestler turning heel and ripping off his shirt to reveal a "New World Order" team jersey underneath. This assumption ignores a whole range of possibilities. 1. That they didn't know they were gay when they joined the service. (Acceptance of homosexuality is a relatively new concept in today's society. Many people deny being gay even to themselves, for as long as they possibly can.) 2. That the fact they were gay came out inadvertently instead of deliberately. People make slipups on what they reveal about themselves all the time. Maybe they were talking to a family member on facebook and forgot that one of their military buddies could see what they were saying. Maybe they had a copy of a Cher CD hidden in their locker that someone stumbled upon. Who knows? I could go on, but you get the drift. But, irregardless, two more important details DO factually apply. 1. They aren't "getting paid for doing nothing" anymore than ANYONE ELSE WHO GOT A DISCHARGE FROM THE ARMED FORCES is. Rather, instead of getting half pay for their discharge they're getting the same amount as anyone else because the armed forces and the government determined that a previous policy was not correct. In other words, no special rights for gays...but just getting the same amount of money they otherwise would have. 2. The amount of money we're talking about is TRIVIAL next to the defense budget. There's been 3968 soldiers discharged under DADT since 2004 until it was repealed according to Wikipedia. If we, conservatively, assume that we're talking about, on average, about 4.5 years of additional pay we can do some very rough calculations. I have absolutely no idea what the severance pay is and it probably varies by rank, but let's just say that half of their annual severance pay is $15,000 annually. Heck, just to make sure we don't underestimate the price tag by too much, I'll make it $30,000 which assume severance pay per year is $60,000 which seems pretty darn good. 3968 soldiers times an average of 4.5 years times 30,000 per year = $535,680,000. The average ANNUAL defense budget in the U.S.?
Approximately 711 BILLION dollars annually. 711,000,000,000 (Note, that is 2008 budget. Probably higher today. But this will be close enough.) So, if we assume that that the armed forces decides to take the entire severance pay hit upfront. 535,680,000/711,000,000,000 = .000753% Or approximately 7.5 HUNDREDTHS of a percent. Not one percent. (.01) Not .1 percent. (.001) But 7.5 TENTHS of .1 percent. (.000753) And that's if they decide to take the full severance pay hit in a single year. This is the equivalent of them forking over the pennies you find underneath your couch cushions to do the right thing to the approximately 4000 soldiers who were discharged so they get paid the same severance as any other discharged soldier.
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