Unbelievable

[calamity jane]

Some soldiers are so hard up they are having to be issued with food vouchers to pay for their meals, an internal Army report has revealed.
The briefing paper, drawn up for the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, warned that increasing numbers of soldiers are now close to the Government's definition of poverty.
It said that growing numbers were being forced to leave the service because they could not afford to bring up a family on Army pay.
Details of the briefing paper were published by the Independent on Sunday and the Sunday Express.
It highlighted the way that some soldiers had been running into financial difficulties since the introduction of a Pay As You Dine (PAYD) scheme.
Under the new system soldiers who are not on active duty now pay for each meal they eat in the mess rather than a flat rate covering all their meals.
However the paper discloses that some soldiers were finding that by the end of the month they had run out of money and had nothing left to pay for food.
As a result commanders had been forced to set up local "Hungry Soldier" schemes, where troops are issued with vouchers to pay for their meals which are then deducted from their future pay.
The briefing paper said that the introduction of PAYD had been "divisive" and warned that it raised "duty of care" issues for the Army.
The Ministry of Defence insisted that it was only a "small number of individuals" who had "failed to manage their finances properly" who needed to apply for food vouchers.

[ByTheWay]

Re: Unbelievable

OMG how disgusting is that!! Our soldiers put their lives on the line for this country. The governments continued lack of care is increasingly worrying, not content with insufficient aftercare it's now spilling out into their army life too. If they're not careful they'll end up with nobody wanting to join up.

[Guest]

Re: Unbelievable

OMG how disgusting is that!! Our soldiers put their lives on the line for this country. The governments continued lack of care is increasingly worrying, not content with insufficient aftercare it's now spilling out into their army life too. If they're not careful they'll end up with nobody wanting to join up.

That is already the case and has been for some time.

It is not only basic pay of course, as you have pointed out, it is the aftercare, or lack of it too.

We hear all the time of people who get paid hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation for RSI, yet soldiers who lose limbs have to survive on a fraction of that. Only recently it was reported that an Iraqi civilian was awarded £2,000,000 because he was accidentally shot, yet our injured soldiers can only get a maximum of £285,000 and many will receive considerably less.

Soldiers have an over-developed sense of duty, that is why they are soldiers and they will put up with just about anything because they think they should. They will go and fight in some god-forsaken desert in the certain knowledge that many of them will die – but they do it anyway.

Labour have traditionally despised having an army or fighting forces of any kind. I would very much doubt anybody in the armed forces voted for them – I know we never did when I was in. They have systematically dismantled our regiments and severely weakened our ability to operate any kind of credible force wherever we are deployed. This leads to the soldiers who do get sent being ill-equipped and poorly supported.

Yet still they go.

[Sapphire]

Re: Unbelievable

And meanwhile all the money that could be assigned for our soldiers is being wasted on illegals, benefit scroungers and god knows who else, wonderful just wonderful. Makes you proud to be British doesn't it - NOT.