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Name:
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MrHodja
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Subject:
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Military Pensions
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Date:
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2/21/2011 10:54:24 PM
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"That is my opinion based solely on the financial state of our country. Others may disagree for emotional reasons, etc."
Please don't belittle other opinions as being emotional. I, like MAJ, stayed out of this as long as I could. Disclaimer: I am the recipient of a military retirement income.
For those of us most directly affected it is more than emotion. When we made a conscious decision to make the military a career, there were many factors in play. One was the job security ....do a decent job and you wouldn't lose it. Another was medical care for yourself and your family....not an insignificant consideration. Another was the other benefits....commissary, BX, and so forth (the value of which, or lack thereof, that we could debate on another thread).
Then there was the other side of it. The fact that the military person gives up, for at least 20 years, the ability to choose his or her future. The fact that he or she might have to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country and come home in a plastic bag. Having to live in housing overseas that at times can be miserable. Giving up a spouse's aspirations for a career (It took my wife 23 years and 7 different colleges to get her accounting degree). Giving up the reasonable expectation that one's financial awards would be based on how hard and how smart one works. Having to move just because the military decides you need to. Not being able to forge any kind of real relationship with your pastor, your tire guy, or your barber because you will be gone before you can. Being subjected to homogenized religion when overseas because the chaplain corps has to serve so many different faiths. Never being able to set roots.
When you get right down to it, in this day of the all-volunteer service there is a contract between the service and the serviceman/woman. Part of that contract is the carrot at then end of the stick - the retirement stipend - along with the others (which, by the way, are not at all what I was led to believe they would be). Address that benefit carefully.
I would love to know what a military recruiter would say about reducing the retirement benefit vis a vis their ability to bring in new blood. Or what the unit commander would have to say when the re-up candidate is facing the stay in/get out decision. Face it, the retirement benefit is a MAJOR reason that military folks remain beyond their original commitment. Say what you want about wanting to serve, but if that stick doesn't have something hanging at its end, the decision becomes a lot easier for the service member.
So the military retirement benefit is not something that one can compare to civilian retirement with any sense of intellectual honesty. There are an awful lot of BS expenditures (try, for one, people getting an income tax refund in spite of working at all) that you need to attack before the military retirement benefit. Do you really want a second-rate military in favor of people who won't do for themselves?
Nasreddin Hodja Lt Col, USAF, (Ret)
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