The current concern about those who serve in the military -- especially their pay and quality of life -- is a good thing, but also a little misguided in places. Sure, defending America is not a job to be foisted by the better-off and well connected onto the low-paid help. But unfortunately, the widespread ignorance about military life in a society where we don't have the draft anymore makes informed discussion of the subject difficult.

For example, much is being made of the fact that some 5,000 military families receive food stamps. But this actually comes to about one in every 200 families, a considerably lower number than in the civilian population, and much of it is due to an accounting glitch concerning how housing allowances are tallied, which makes some GIs appear to earn less than they do.

The Pentagon proposed replacing the food stamps with debit cards for use only on-base. Instead, Congress opted for a targeted cash payment of up to $ 500 monthly. GIs and their supporters should find this troubling.

What is rarely acknowledged about these former food stamp recipients in uniform is that they are recently enlisted, very junior personnel with lots of children. These people chose to have children they couldn't afford and (very responsibly) joined the military to improve their standard of living. Their personal choices, not hard-hearted America, impoverished them. As one active-duty friend said, "Who told them they didn't have to wait until they were established to have a family?"

This is where America's lack of veterans causes a disconnect in the public discourse on defense issues. The guilt of avoiding military service inflicts on civilians a psychological inability to disagree with or doublecheck those who serve. That's why this line of reasoning (no extra money for extra kids) comes so naturally when the subject is welfare recipients but induces gasps when it refers to an airman first class.

As one who has been there, I can assure you: GIs study the pay tables like John Ashcroft studies the Bible. Central to every "fruit salad" medal display on a dress uniform are longevity medals. In my Air Force days (1980-92) you got the basic ribbon at four years, then a "device" (a little brass bug) for each subsequent completion.

Outside of job performance and special circumstances, rank and time in grade are everything to pay and promotion. You know from Day One exactly what you'll earn, exactly when you can be promoted, exactly how much extra you'll receive for going airborne or to a combat zone or a special duty assignment at an embassy.

One of the things that GIs hold dear is that a captain is a captain is a captain. Whether running a motor pool, performing C-sections or interpreting for foreign dignitaries, one captain is paid like any other, based on rank, longevity, (limited) number of dependents, job performance and special duties.

If you want more, it's there to be had, because all the things that earn you extra pay are things the military sorely needs done but lacks enough troops to accomplish. But you have to work for it.

The fairness issues abound when we start treating GIs like welfare recipients -- that is, more money for having more kids. For instance, for service people with a security clearance, "financial irresponsibility" is a legitimate reason for loss of access to classified information (and with it, career). Why punish a GI with bad credit but reward a teenager who didn't practice birth control?

Like civilian control, the military's evenhanded structure of rank and pay helps make it the source of social stability and upward mobility that it is. It's what helps to keep it one of the few institutions in American life that nearly everyone admires and trusts. Where else could a mediocre student born of West Indian immigrants have risen to such high office as has Colin Powell?

I'd hate to think that simple political expediency and cheap Dem-bashing by some Republicans in Congress is starting to get in the way of that hard-headed, up-by-your-own-bootstraps GI mentality.

More troubling is that America lacks enough veterans in public life with the experience to know when something complicated is being oversimplified for political gain.