@MotherJones:This is what the $361B the Pentagon handed to military contractors in 2012 bought
The Budget Deal Is a Big Win for the Pentagon
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But now, the Pentagon has once more gotten a reprieve from the budget ax: Under Murray and Ryan's congressional budget deal, the Pentagon will get an additional $32 billion, or 4.4 percent, in 2014, leaving its base budget at a higher level than in 2005 and 2006. (The Department of Defense expects its total 2014 budget, including supplemental war funding, to be more than $600 billion.)
Before the budget deal, some critics of defense spending had been ready to accept sequestration as the blunt, imperfect tool that might force the military to shed some of the bulk it acquired while fighting two of the longest and most expensive wars in our history. Even with the sequester in place, the Pentagon's base budget was set to remain well above pre-9/11 levels for the next decade, and the military would have taken a far smaller haircut than it did after Vietnam and the Cold War wound down.
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More: http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/12/pentagon-budget-deal-charts-cuts
Onward and upward or somewhere......
= new reply since forum marked as read
Those are the most dramatic cases they have, and what many think of the VA. But some vets are addicted to cigarettes and alcohol and end up with lung disease, cancer, and all the things that attend years years of alcohol abuse. Partly due to experiences and the rest due to policy, or so a friend whose entire family has been military for generations.
I asked - what policy?
Friend said they gave the guys cigarettes as a stimulant and It makes sense. I've heard that the Nazis used meth to keep going and be more aggressive and always suspected that the people in concentration camps who were still working while straving, were likely being given it instead of food. So I looked it up and here is some:
The Nazi Death Machine
Hitler's Drugged Soldiers
By Andreas Ulrich
...Many of the Wehrmacht's soldiers were high on Pervitin when they went into battle, especially against Poland and France -- in a Blitzkrieg fueled by speed. The German military was supplied with millions of methamphetamine tablets during the first half of 1940. The drugs were part of a plan to help pilots, sailors and infantry troops become capable of superhuman performance. The military leadership liberally dispensed such stimulants, but also alcohol and opiates, as long as it believed drugging and intoxicating troops could help it achieve victory over the Allies. But the Nazis were less than diligent in monitoring side-effects like drug addiction and a decline in moral standards.
After it was first introduced into the market in 1938, Pervitin, a methamphetamine drug newly developed by the Berlin-based Temmler pharmaceutical company, quickly became a top seller among the German civilian population. According to a report in the Klinische Wochenschrift ("Clinical Weekly"
, the supposed wonder drug was brought to the attention of Otto Ranke, a military doctor and director of the Institute for General and Defense Physiology at Berlin's Academy of Military Medicine. The effects of amphetamines are similar to those of the adrenaline produced by the body, triggering a heightened state of alert. In most people, the substance increases self-confidence, concentration and the willingness to take risks, while at the same time reducing sensitivity to pain, hunger and thirst, as well as reducing the need for sleep. In September 1939, Ranke tested the drug on 90 university students, and concluded that Pervitin could help the Wehrmacht win the war. At first Pervitin was tested on military drivers who participated in the invasion of Poland. Then, according to criminologist Wolf Kemper, it was "unscrupulously distributed to troops fighting at the front."
During the short period between April and July of 1940, more than 35 million tablets of Pervitin and Isophan (a slightly modified version produced by the Knoll pharmaceutical company) were shipped to the German army and air force. Some of the tablets, each containing three milligrams of active substance, were sent to the Wehrmacht's medical divisions under the code name OBM, and then distributed directly to the troops. A rush order could even be placed by telephone if a shipment was urgently needed. The packages were labeled "Stimulant," and the instructions recommended a dose of one to two tablets "only as needed, to maintain sleeplessness."
Even then, doctors were concerned about the fact that the regeneration phase after taking the drug was becoming increasingly long, and that the effect was gradually decreasing among frequent users. In isolated cases, users experienced health problems like excessive perspiration and circulatory disorders, and there were even a few deaths. Leonardo Conti, the German Reich's minister of health and an adherent of Adolf Hitler's belief in asceticism, attempted to restrict the use of the pill, but was only moderately successful, at least when it came to the Wehrmacht. Although Pervitin was classified as a restricted substance on July 1, 1941, under the Opium Law, ten million tablets were shipped to troops that same year.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/the-nazi-death-machine-hitler-s-drugged-soldiers-a-354606.html
A good deal more here:
WWII Drug: The German Granddaddy of Crystal Meth
By Fabienne Hurst
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/crystal-meth-origins-link-back-to-nazi-germany-and-world-war-ii-a-901755.html
And not to be outdone:
WW II German soldiers, civilians dropped amphetamines to give them boost to battle allies Known as ‘tank chocolate’ and ‘pilot’s salt,’ millions of Pervitin tablets were gulped down by German soldiers — but allies had their pep pills, too.
German soldiers during World War II were hyped for killing by a powerful stimulant handed out like battlefield rations...
Pervitin, the precursor to “whites,” “speed,” “crank” and methamphetamines, was considered a wonder drug that not only kept soldiers alert and focused, but also increased morale...
The Brits, the Japanese and the U.S. also shipped amphetamines to their troops.
The U.S. Air Force, in particular, handed out the pills to keep pilots alert during long-haul bombing missions.
The Pentagon continued to dole them out to troops until the 1991 invasion of Iraq...
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/ww-ii-german-soldiers-civilians-dropped-amphetamines-give-boost-battle-allies-article-1.1362017
So they appear to have a strong military justification to give them smokes and other drugs.
that's a major national security issue. 
Down size the empire and bring ALL of our troops back home.
We have no need to be sitting in all those country s that can
can defend themselves.
Unless they are willing to PAY all of our expenses.
So it's not all one way as you suggest....Australia is locked into buying a jet fighter that currently looks like it'll never get off the ground and also paid for next to useless 40 year old reconditioned choppers that never were commissioned..the mob would be proud of this protection racket!!!
LOL.
