Military Pay II

Dear Richard,
I apologize for striking a nerve!
For those who may not recall my previous essay on military pay, Richard is referring to the fact that I compared the pay and benefits of 18-year-old military inductees having only a high school degree and no skills with those same persons entering fast food employment. I concluded that military benefits were somewhat better.
Richard then asked, "From the perspective of an ex-combat infantryman: would you put your life on the line, day after day, under sub-human living conditions, for $1,200-$3,600/year?" My reply is, "No!"
This then leads me to my second apology which is that I apparently did not adequately explain the basis of the original Washington Times article on which I was commenting, and why I had chosen comparison of military employment with fast food employment for 18-year-old high school graduates.
The Washington Times article was replete with complaints from military personnel about being generally underpaid. In no case were they making the point that their pay should be higher because of the hazardous nature of their work.
If we go back to Richards question, we really should look at it in the context of current conditions, which is a volunteer army, as opposed to say World War II where combat infantrymen were draftees, not having a choice of whether they were combat infantrymen are not. Present new inductees into the military volunteer for that particular line of work, when they also had an opportunity to volunteer for fast food work. There are various reasons why an 18-year-old would choose one over the other, and we can not go into all of those now. The facts are that young people do volunteer for military duty and in doing so have somewhat better financial incentives than if they volunteered for fast food work.
However, we cannot ignore the difference in hazard between the two types of work. While much of military activity involves nonhazardous duty, there is always the potential of being assigned to hazardous operations, which is not the case for fast food work.
If the implication is made that hazardous work should pay better than nonhazardous work, I agree completely. If a young person is given adequate training and then assigned to active duty as a combat infantrymen in a "war zone", I believe he should be given combat pay. In addition, since many segments of the military could at any time be called to actual combat, I also believe that they should be given readiness pay.
Some may still find my position objectionable, but at least I believe I have now better described the situation.