How the Military Preys On the Poor
#InMyWords: Hope Weigle
The Pennsylvania Poor People’s Campaign will be publishing a series of testimonies from those involved with the campaign about why they joined the campaign as part of a national effort to document and uplift the voices of the most affected. The following statement was given during the campaign’s third week of action in Harrisburg on Tuesday, May 29, 2018.
Hope Weigle is a volunteer with Put People First! PA and lives in Johnstown, Pa.
Hope Wiegle (right) and Keith Schenck on their way to speak at the State Capitol Building during the third week of the PA-Poor People’s Campaign on Tuesday, May 29.
One year to the day before his assassination, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his speech titled Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence. In this speech he spoke the words, “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
Our very own government is still flinging coins to beggars in the form of G.I. Bills, signing bonuses, and various other promises of money that don’t seem to come through in many cases.
Twenty years ago, I was a girl who grew up in poverty and knew that college would be out of reach. At the time, student loans were virtually unheard of, and there was no chance of affording college any other way. After much thought about what to do with my life, I decided to go talk to the Armed Forces Recruiters. I listened to the Navy recruiter’s sales pitch about the Montgomery G.I. Bill and how I would be able to go to college for “free”, get signing bonuses up to $10,000 for extra enlistment time, and I signed up that day. Why wouldn’t the poor kid sign up for such amazing things?
Uncle Sam had flung a coin to me…the beggar. I would get to do the honorable thing and serve my country while simultaneously climbing out of poverty…or so I thought. Instead, they found every reason possible not to allow me to get either the signing bonus or the G.I. Bill. Unfortunately, that meant my pathway out of poverty was taken away.
Now, 51 years after King’s words were spoken, the same vicious cycle is still taking place.
The United States Armed Forces are promising the world to anyone who will listen, especially those in poverty, sending young men and women off to war, and letting them down when they arrive home.
Hope Wiegle with Celeste Zappala from Gold Star Families for Peace in Harrisburg for the PA-PPC on Tuesday, May 29. Photo Credit: Robin E. Eichenlaub
How is it that we have a defense budget of just under $700 billion, but we cannot spare some of that money to take care of those who have made the choice to defend our country?
Why do we still have veterans and servicemembers without proper housing and healthcare?
Why is overall care lacking so badly that an average of 22 veterans per day decide that life is no longer worth living?
How can any of this possibly be justified?
For generations, young people who have chosen the path of defending freedom in order to make better lives for themselves, have fallen victim to the very system they chose to defend.
This cannot continue to happen!
We must demand that coins like this stop being flung to the beggars who only wish to climb out of poverty by writing blank checks up to and including their lives for a nation which turns their back on them once they have served the purpose of feeding the military industrial complex!
We must demand that our young men and women stop being sent into senseless wars manufactured for the sake of building up the war economy.
The choice of serving one’s country is one that should be made out of honor, not necessity!
And until the war economy is broken, there is no honor!
Auditing of Pennsylvania:
In addition to uplifting the voices of those most affected, the Pennsylvania Poor People’s Campaign is auditing Pennsylvania 50 years after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. challenged the evils of racism, militarism, and poverty, assessing what the conditions of poverty look like in our state.
In looking at federal funding that goes to the state, Pennsylvania received over $12.7 billion dollars from the Department of Defense (DOD) and $10.3 billion in DOD contracts, which is the largest federal funding investment category in the state. DOD spending is the equivalent to $1,145 per PA resident, followed by DOD contracts which is $805 per resident. Yet, spending on Veterans’ programs is a mere $5.4 million dollars, which is only $0.42 per resident.
Veterans
Despite the long-held argument that military spending benefits our veterans and military personnel, that is far from the truth. The majority of federal defense spending in the state of PA goes to contracts, not personnel or veterans. In fact, many of our veterans have been abandoned, marginalized, isolated and forgotten by our policies and policy-makers. In PA, veterans are not immune from the challenges of poverty, homelessness, and health issues.
Pennsylvania ranks 8th in the nation for veterans facing homelessness and Dauphin county has the most veterans experiencing homelessness within PA.
One in 12 (8%) veterans in PA rely on SNAP to cover food costs, while nearly 1 in 4 veterans face some variation of housing insecurity (affordability, poor quality, or overcrowding).