Supporting the troops…

…can't end on the battlefield. Maintaining the level of morale required for mission success is complex. The mess hall is part of it. So's mail call. And, certainly, the pay line.

I'm skeptical of the value of money as a primary motivator for the military. It's hardly the best, and should never be the only, reason to enlist in the service. It matters, though, and especially in the time of a war which has required so little for most of us and so much for most of them, you'd think the Commander in Chief would want to get every good thing possible for his troops.

You'd think wrong...

The House Armed Services Committee recommends a 3.5 percent pay increase for 2008, and increases in 2009 through 2012 that also are 0.5 percentage point greater than private-sector pay raises.

The slightly bigger military raises are intended to reduce the gap between military and civilian pay that stands at about 3.9 percent today. Under the bill, HR 1585, the pay gap would be reduced to 1.4 percent after the Jan. 1, 2012, pay increase.

Bush budget officials said the administration “strongly opposes” both the 3.5 percent raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases “unnecessary.”

"Unnecessary."

Probably so. Like I say, money's really not a primary motivator for most soldiers. They're going to do the same job just as well regardless of what kind of pay raise is appropriated. They're going to do it more for each other than the money, no matter what the money is.

Maybe some Spec 4's kid will get a warmer school coat because of mom's raise, or some First Shirt's kid will go to college on money saved from dad's raise.

Maybe.

Or maybe it's just a way for a grateful nation to say, however clumsily or inadequately, thanks.

But it's "unnecessary" for Bushco™.

I hate what they're doing to my Army.