Michael Crook the idiot from ForsakeTheTroops.info, a website that celebrates the death of US troops, showed up on Hannity and Colmes. Head over there and watch the video of this piece of crap. According to him the troops are overpaid(?!) and overcompensated and wounded soldiers are "leeches" off the government.

You can see the 2004 military pay scale (PDF File) to see how much we're "wasting" on our military. The majority of the troops are in the lower pay scale of E-5 and below.

You can see the video by going to US and World news at Fox News and then selecting the video on the right hand side under the headline "Forsake Our Troops?". If you have a means of providing a direct link to this video please let me know because you'd be a true hero, I couldn't get a direct link to it.

Thanks to reader Melissa who tipped me to this.

Here's a quick case study

An E-4 with 4 years in the military makes $1814.10 a month as of Jan 1, 2004. For this pay, when deployed, they will more than likely work 12 hour days, potentially be put in harms way on a moments notice and be ripped from their family or home base whenever the military deems it is necessary. Weekends in the military are not a sure thing, as sometime you are required to stand watch. When I was in the Navy, this meant you had to be aboard for your entire 24 hour "duty day" every 3rd or 4th day and stand a 4-hour watch. So say you're in your homeport and on a 4-day watch schedule. You are working 8-10 hour days when not deployed, and putting in an additional 16-14 hours on your 4th day. This works out to 54-66 hours a week the typical E-4 will put in -- if his duty day doesn't happen to fall on a weekend in which case you can add 24 hours to that. On the high end (56-hour workweek) they're making $8.40 an hour, on the low end (64 hour workweek) they're making $7.07 an hour. This is after having been in for 4 years!

When someone in the Navy is deployed they are in essence on duty 24/7. Even when off duty you are still stuck on a ship and if you are a "ground pounder" deployed you are still in a combat area. For a Navy individual at sea for a 30-day month, allowing for a 4 day port of call, you are working 27 days (remember one of those days in port is your duty day and you have to remain aboard for all 24 hours). 27*24=648 hours of inconvenience and 324 hours of actual being on duty working (12 hour days). Depending on how you look at it, you are making $5.58 an hour if you just go by the duty hours and $2.79 an hour if you count them all. Either way you're taking crap from some officer or higher ranked enlisted personnel (there's always at least one pain in the butt).

The benefits you will receive are free medical care and reduced cost items in the Post Exchanges. In addition if you have a family and are forced off base due to crowded on base housing they will subsidize your rent and give you a Cost of Living Allowance. You may also potentially receive other benefits like the GI bill.

So to say they are overcompensated is absolutely ridiculous and shows the ignorance of this imbecile at ForsakeTheTroops. He obviously has never known anyone in the military. For those of you who haven't really investigated what soldiers really make and what they give up I hope the above gives you a little insight.