“Military pensions are funded in advance.”
No they are not. They use the same accounting as social security, namely (from your link) “The money in the fund is invested in nonnegotiable government securities”
In other words, the money is simply recycled within the government and spent.
That means that military pension payouts are funded out of current year funds - that also means that when there isn’t enough money in any current year to come, they won’t be paid as expected, if at all. As in Social Security, there is no “lock box”
So, yes, they promised. A government promise is meaningless unless there is a prosperous private sector to pay for it all.
The money has to go somewhere. If non-negotiable bonds are not ‘safe’, then what is? But the money was not just promised. It was spent, and taken out of the taxes paid each year in advance - just as social security was.
That makes it a contract. Yes, a contract is sort of a promise, but it is a promise that has been paid for and thus the obligation is different than the pension in Detroit, which was promised but never funded.
If it wasn’t for the military..there would be no private sector