Realist,
3000 F22? Where'd you get that number? Yes, we spend twice as much as other Western nations on defense spending, we also have heavier obligations and are targeted more than they. Being number two or three for the US is NOT an option. We're either number one or we'll be ate alive.
Salary? I as a married Sergeant First Class, E-7 getting paid a if I had 18 years of service (though I only have 13, but my serve time counts for pay though not retirement) I make a grant spanking total of $3400 a month. When I'm sitting behind my computer at work it seems ok, though not great. When I'm sitting up to my knees in mud pulling guard duty at 3AM after having been humping a rucksack all day long being away from my wife and family missing birthdays and anniversaries, it ain't near enough.
The Army Times does a yearly salary comparison between civilian and military jobs. We do better in some, worse in others, but when you figure in that we're literally on call 24 hours a day. That my work day begins at 6 AM and ends at 5 pm when everything is going well, but that if mission requires I can work until 9, 10 or even midnight for days or even weeks on end. That two or three times a month I'm in charge of 60 privates at night in a barracks. That two or three times a month I have to stay up for over 24 hours to do that duty. That I'm personally financially responsible for thousands and sometimes millions of dollars of equipment. That in the first three years of my marriage I was away from home and family over half of it. That when I do deploy overseas I'm a target, even in countries we're not at war at, by virtue of my uniform. That I've had to make decisions that effected whether or not people will live and die by prioritizing radio message to pass to the general in charge of the bombing campaign in Kosovo, etc etc etc ad infinitum, no, we aren't paid near enough.
BUT we don't do it for the money. We do it mostly out of principle. Soldiers are the most principled people I've ever worked with, which is why I came back into the military after leaving it after the Gulf War. All this talk of "it's the only job these poor kids from Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia can get" is nonsense. You need to talk to these young recruits and ask them why they came into the military. In most cases it's principle, not finances. Sure, they take advantage of the college money available, etc. But some of the kids we have coming in are from WEALTHY families. In fact the demographics of the military show that the well off serve in numbers proportionate to their population (as was the case in Viet Nam as well).
