According to the author, Congress needs to reverse what he calls American shame.

His calculations indicate that the income of a low-ranking member of the armed forces of his country, around 30 thousand dollars a year, is insufficient to guarantee medical care, housing and food.

Active duty service members shouldn’t apply for government aid programs or go to food banks, they should be paid a salary that allows them to feed their families, General Ferrari said.

He noted that the problem has gotten worse during the pandemic from a study that indicated a 150 percent increase in food insecurity among the military in the past two years or more.

This issue should be one of the priorities of Congress, which is preparing to vote on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2023, a project already analyzed in committees of the Lower House and the Senate with budgets expected to exceed 800 billion dollars.

The 2022 NDAA provided a basic needs allowance for military families, and while that helps, all the legislature accomplished was to replace one source of public assistance with another because it doesn’t pay troops living wages, the general warned.

With inflation on the rise, Congress should increase military pay beyond the 4.6 percent proposed by the Defense Department, the retired general suggested.

Food insecurity among the military is a national security problem: it multiplies the stress of active-duty personnel, decreases their well-being and can make recruitment difficult, according to a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The highest inflation in 40 years, problems in the supply chain and the end of aid programs by the government led to insufficient food on the tables of the families of soldiers and Americans in general.

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