That retirement pay thing again

| August 19, 2011

Several of you are upset with a CBS story about the planned changes to the military retirement system. I guess they shouldn’t have started the story the way they did;

It sounds like a pretty good deal: Retire at age 38 after 20 years of work and get a monthly pension of half your salary for the rest of your life. All you have to do is join the military.

Yep, that’s “all you have to do”…join. You don’t have to spend months away from your family, live in the mud, climb mountains pulling a 500-pound ahkio behind you through waist deep snow, suffer in triple digit temperatures and no air conditioning in sight. Stand in real torrential downpours, holding a spike lined tree hoping you don’t get washed away. Sleep in a hammock four inches above the swamp water because you don’t like waking up with poisonous snakes in your bed. You don’t have to live for days on a few moments of sleep or forage for your food. You don’t have to arrive at the cutting edge of battle by land, sea, or air.

You don’t have to be responsible not only for your welfare, but the welfare of 30 other people and 7 million dollars worth of equipment, all before you’re 25 years old. Or you don’t have to move 120 one million dollar-plus vehicles and their crews from point A to point B across the plains of Europe before you’re 30 years old.

You don’t have to look your country’s enemies in the eye and pull your trigger and then live with the attendant dreams the rest of your life. You don’t have to wake up with night sweats screaming almost every night. You don’t have to deal with the hippies spitting on you and calling you names. You don’t have to intermittently watch your children grow up.

Your day doesn’t start at 4 in the morning and end at 6 PM on a regular duty day – on one of your short days. And it doesn’t include those days when you get called at 2 AM for an alert and you don’t come home for a month or six.

And, oh, you don’t have to share half of your pension with that cheatin’ wife who couldn’t wait for you to come home from doing your duty before she divorced you.

All you have to do is join the military and your future is secured with that anemic pension that presidents and Congress can snatch away from you a portion at a time.

By the way, CBS, the military pension hasn’t been “half your salary” since Jimmy Carter made it 40% for folks who joined after 1977. Do your research.

Category: Media, Military issues, Veterans Issues

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tankerswife

Amen!

QMC

REDUX got changed back to fifty percent, unless you want to take a lump some at your fifteen year mark and less COLA.

QMC

In case I was unclear, the only people who get forty percent are those who choose to, and they get 30K up front.

QMC

I am getting tired of this “pretty good pension after ONLY twenty years” and “it’s unsustainable” bullshit that seems to be fairly prevalent even on a lot of right wing blogs.

Look, I know we are in that part of twenty year cycle in which we cut defense and pay/benefits.

Just A Grunt

They always fail to mention the average salary of an enlisted person after 20 years of service also. They always mention the 50% but fail to tell you what it is 50% of.

AW1 Tim

Well said, Jonn. Thank you.

You should add something about it NOT being a job. It’s a 24/7 availability duty cycle where you can and will be called out whenever the situation warrants, to do whatever leadership deems necessary, and wherever they choose to do it.

It ain’t a union 9-5 job.

Old Trooper

Yeah, “all you have to do is join the military”; what arrogant assholes. As has been so eloquently stated by the site owner; there’s a difference between spending 20 years at Wal Mart and spending 20 years in every shithole and G-d foresaken training facility on the planet (Eglin AFB comes to mind) plus the bonus of possibly getting shot at or dodging IEDs for a few years just for shits and giggles all so some smarmy POS from some media outlet can dimish the sacrifices of those that serve.

Fuck you.

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UpNorth

“Fuck you”. Well said, OT, can’t think of a thing to add that would express my contempt any better for the LSM and their “thoughts” about service.
And, again, why does the Pentagon have a “Defense Business Board”?

JustPlainJason

Something I wrote on Facebook…

I wonder how many man hours are put in over those 20 years? Just think of basic training, more or less you are working for 24 hours a day except a couple hours on Sunday, just some rough math you have about 1400 man hours right there 2100 if you go through OSUT. In two to three months you have already worked more man hours than the average government worker in 9 months to a year. So yeah, generous in comparison to other government jobs.

malclave

“Half your salary”… and here I thought it was just half of base pay, so things like COLA, BAQ, seperate rations, etc. were excluded.

Mike D

There are two things I never see in all these discussions on military retirement.

1. In the 1970s, the nation made a choice to move from a drafted force to an all-volunteer force. That necessitated a pay increase to make people want to sign up and stay (not all, but some). As I see it, the elite of our country decided to BUY a top notch military so that their kids wouldn’t automatically have to serve. And, by-and-large, they didn’t serve anymore.

Now the bill is here and the kids of those elites are running things now. They generally don’t know anyone who served. They just see our benefits without context. So, they don’t know that, for example, I’ve lived in 7 houses in the last 10 years. That I deployed twice with two-week old babies at home. They say that is my job, and they are right. BUT. You made a promise to those of us who took an oath to SERVE. To offer up our lives for an idea. Don’t sacrifice that promise to us for those who didn’t and use the “taking care of the marginalized” as an excuse. This nation offers equal opportunity, and if you had raised your right hand, you could have served too. But, YOU DID NOT. I did not welch on my promise, don’t you DARE welch on yours.

2. I didn’t see this push for savings when we bailed out the autoworkers. The government made a conscious decision to make pensions and health care whole at the expense of bondholders. Nothing against autoworkers, but I don’t think they quite offer the nation what the military does.

Mike D

One more thing…

Second careers work out great for guys who do something marketable like program or financial management. Careers that don’t have an analogue in the civilian world (like missileer, infantryman, satellite technician, JTAC, Air Battle Manager) are 20 years behind their peers in earning potential and don’t have a “marketable skill” beyond the maturity that 20 years of service brings.

Biermann

It’s funny when people ask me why I’m still working once they find out I retired from the AF.

DaveO

#13 Mike D,

You are correct, and missing something. Every post has eduction center. SM can get formally educated, or learn a trade at the local votech.

You know – that might be a great thing to add to a retirement package. For the Regulars, at year 18 get an evaluation and if not formally degreed, be given time to get the degree, or votech certificate. If SM opts out, well that’s on him/her. If the Army does the Korea-screw, sending a SM at year 19 to Korea, SM is given time to complete courses via internet.

PurpleDragon

I only did 3yrs so no retirement for me, however I think I’m about to become 100% service connected but it’s a piss poor trade-off for what is likely terminal cancer. Or the fact I haven’t eaten since April (peg tube in my stomach). And I seem to spend about a week in the hospital after each chemo treatment (every three weeks).

SSG Medzyk

Well, we do have a swell clothing program. I mean, it’s free, right?

MikeD…hooah brother.

OWB

Oh, yeah – it’s that clothing thing that makes the retirement pay so very special…or maybe not.

Doc Bailey

Might it also be prudent to point out the string of broken marriages, or worse the Pension Hunters? They marry an SM (usually at 18) stay with him for 10 years, find a new SM and stay with him 10 years. . . yes it HAS happened, and those poor saps don’t have a choice in the matter, they can’t fight it, the law says the wife gets 1/2!

I remember hearing horror stories of the Clinton years. Stories of e-5’s getting Welfare because they couldn’t afford a wife and a kid. so personally, I think very soon we will have to have a draftee army, because, keep this up and no one will voluntarily serve.

Coldwarrior57

A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his or her life,
wrote a blank check made payable to the United States of
America for an amount of “up to and including their life”!

I think a pension after 20 is Ok.
DONT MESS WITH THEIR PENSION, Increase that pay for lower levels EM’s. Personally I beleive that E1-5 should be tax free. Its a crime that lower EMS are on wic or food stamps!

Shirl in DC

PurpleDragon, May God bless and heal you. All of the comments I’ve seen are kicking the devil in its teeth, but not slaying him. I served in the Army 8 years only (yes I miss it) so I know a little about the countless hours and sacrifice most Soldiers faithlessly put in. Its a shame that Soldiers honor their contract to the T, but thr govt can change their end of the contract anytime without legal ramifications.

Despite the mess our Soldiers face both in and out of the military I still encouraging my daughter to go into the military after college. Every person in my opinion should serve so they know what its like to defend and be defended, however I am also advising her to make sure the job she performs in the military has a corresponding position in the civilian world. There is life after the military and that is what she, we must prepare for, life as a civilian.

Godspeed to all Soldiers and Veterans!

B Woodman

Just another reason for me to NOT recommend military service to any young person who asks.

Jerry920

#10. My ex wife and I calculated it once. I was an E-5 at Ft. Hood and the first 3 years we were married I was gone a total of 1 1/2 years of that. That was cold war days too, so there weren’t any year long deployments in there. Just the daily grind of Field Exercises, support missions and major deployments (Reforger, Ft. Irwin).

Anonymous

Amen…one more thing that is forgotten by those who have never been in the military is that when you “retire” at 20 or 30 years is that because of all of your moves you are now buying your house while most of your peers have theirs paid off.

Old Trooper

Jerry; I hear that! I figured out that, on average, I was gone 2 1/2 weeks of every month I was in.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, just pointing out that some snot nosed little puss can’t even fathom what it takes to do 20 years in the military and to have him compare it to 20 years of civilian existence is the epitome of arrogance and ignorance.

Sig

It’s not just the years; it’s the mileage. I tell kids in my unit (of which I am apparently no longer one, since they listen) that having a military career is all about managing your rate of death so that there’s something left to spend that 50% at the end…