Navy not immune from cuts

I enjoyed Rear Adm. Douglas Asbjornsen’s May 12 op-ed thoughtfully pointing out the ubiquity of Earth’s water. But the unspoken premise that the U.S. Navy should be exempted from ongoing fiscal belt-tightening is bogus. Armed services rarely acknowledge that some of their funding is unnecessary.

Military costs have skyrocketed recently for many reasons. One: dishonesty regarding phantom threats to the U.S. Two: significant salary and pension increases. Three: institutional waste, for example remodeling a base commander’s house whenever a new individual assumes command. Four: ignoring skills of new personnel when picking their jobs because “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Five: impractical long-term strategy resulting, for example, in costly ICBM wings being built/upgraded for a few decades, and then decommissioned; great stuff for defense contracting corporations and the retired military brass that go to work for them, for the rest of us, not so much.

We used to be able to afford this and still educate and employ our citizenry satisfactorily, but this is no longer the case. I would encourage us all to do our best to distinguish between needs and wants, including those of our world-class military.

David Fietz

Springdale, Wash.