Quality of Military Life a Tough Sale on Campaign Trail
By Niels C. Sorrells
CQ Daily Monitor
March 8, 2001
Since 1989, the Navy has sent Reserve Officer Mark Steven Kirk to Iraq, Haiti, Panama, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, among other places. Kirk finally had his fill of the breakneck pace - so he went to Congress. An ex-House aide, Kirk won last year's congressional race to succeed his former boss, Republican John Edward Porter, who retired after representing Illinois; 10th District since 1980.
The high rate of troop deployments is one of the things freshman lawmaker Kirk would like to change about the military. Also high on his list is a military health care system that he says force soldiers and their families to wait - sometimes days - for service and does not always provide adequate care to military veterans and retirees. Those and other issues are likely to come up on Thursday when the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction holds a hearing on military quality of life issues. Now Kirk says he has to make sure his colleagues understand the gravity of those issues. And he doesn't plan to do it alone.
PAC MOBILIZATON
When the 107th Congress freshman class met to organize in January, the group ranked low military pay as their fourth most important issue. And Kirk might soon get reinforcements on the Hill, thanks to a new political action committee designed to get more retired service members elected to Congress.
The National Defense PAC is one of the newest voices for military representation on Congress. Formed just months before the 2000 Elections, the group of veterans and military retirees made it their goal to support former service members running for office. The group endorsed 22 candidates and donated money to 11. Of those, 10 - including Kirk - won seats in the House. Several now serve on the House Armed Services Committee.
Retired RADM Jim Carey, chairman of the PAC, said his group is convinced that the best way to improve circumstances for the military is to increase military representation on "the Hill". Several Generations ago, Carey said, about 70 percent of representatives and senators had some military experience. Today, about one-third does - 133 House members and 38 senators.
"Unless one has been through those circumstances, it is hard to understand the needs of those serving, or the mindset that develops under those circumstances," said Carey. "I just feel that it's very helpful to have congressmen and senators who have been there and done that, and can explain to the rest what it's really like." Carey said this year's strategy - providing about $1,000 to 11 different candidates - worked so well that the PAC plans to expand in the 2002 elections, perhaps backing dozens of candidates.
Those on the Hill with a military background say that the dearth of members with military experience makes it harder for military issues to receive proper legislative attention.
"They don't know what it's like," said Rep. Lane Evans, Ill., ranking Democrat on the House Veteran's Affairs Committee and a veteran himself. Evans said that while many are sympathetic to military issues, many often have a hard time understanding them if they never served themselves. He said the frustrations of malfunctioning machinery or inadequate base housing and their impact on military readiness are something lost on the civilian population.
But military quality of life issues can be difficult to translate as a campaign theme. Most veterans understand and support them. Many active duty soldiers and officers, however, are politically inactive and shy away from raising concerns about these items. Evans pointed out that soldiers are ordered to avoid politics while in uniform. Once out of the service, it can be hard to change that mindset.
"A lot of people are interested in politics," said Evans. "But they find it hard to make the break."
As for those who are not and never have been in the service, they tend to think of the military in terms of guns and ships, not pay levels and immunization shots. "We have not communicated well enough," said Paul Acari, director of government relations for the Retired Officers Association. "People take the military for granted."