FEDS FACING FURLOUGH SHOUT IT OUT HERE!

[Drahthaardogs]

I am a DoD employee. No, I am not an evil scientist working in a lab creating weapons of mass destruction. Oh, no! On the contrary, I work really hard every day to clean up this country's air, water, and soil. Sixty years ago no one really knew what they were doing, and they buried, burned, or dumped things that they should not have. It made a mess. It hurt people. Something had to be done.

That is where I come in. I clean it up and make it safe again. I work hard. My agency is understaffed because of hiring freezes and, despite what you heard, underpaid compared to our private industry counterparts. I have advanced degrees; I am published in several scientific journals. I work with the best people in the world. I have kids, a wife, a reasonable house in a reasonable neighborhood. I drive a ten year old car. We go out to eat once every two weeks - on payday!

My colleagues have gone to Iraq and Afghanistan, but they don't get $1000/day like the contractors. A modest 3.3% raise and some hazard pay are all they get. They go anyway. We love what we do. I work with the best people in the world, bar none.

This Congress thinks the will break me, but they won't. I survived Bush trying to A-76 outsource me. I survived budget cuts. I have survived the pay freeze, the hiring freeze and I will survive this. Make no mistake though, you will hurt me, my children, my wife. I am a good man whose only crime is working hard for his government at a discounted price. I do not understand why you hate me. I do good things, not bad.

It does not matter though, because I will endure, not because as you claim, I am too lazy to work private industry. I will endure, because I am damned proud of what I do and I love it. No frenzied band of rabid political ideologues are going to change that.

God Bless you my federal brothers and sisters!