So what?
For about half of those 30 years every one of them got monthly retirement checks equal to or greater than my salary and most made damn sure I knew it. I finally passed them but still had only that salary & not the second income they enjoyed. Nor would I qualify for a second retirement and second medical coverage from aerospace employment,
As a side note, I also got to work for or with 2 or 3 retired Generals, several former JAG officers, and several former 05 &06 who were technical doers, they were all decent and reasonable men.
Retired NCOs ran the gamut from real good through behind the tech/regulations curve, to totally useless.
Most prevalent government employee attitude was that losing/wasting/p$$$ing away your budget and demanding more tax dollars to compensate is more noble than reducing costs, fixing failures, and banking a profit.
I noticed you mentioned you were working with a lot of different levels of people. You mentioned a retired O6 that nailed you. If it had been a civilian hired to go into the position out of college that got it based upon his education, would what he did make you feel any different?
There are honest and diligent people in all works of life. We are a product of our history, and learning. Not a product of our pay grade. I’m sorry you ran into dishonest or evil people. I did too. But the difference is that I don’t blame the entire barrel for the two apples that are spoiled. Or picked incorrectly by the pickers, wrong time, wrong apple.
As for the military retirement. I did a job for over 20 years, was blown up once and shot twice, and gave up my body shortening my life by possibly many years, to go into those areas that got shot at as both active and civilian employed. And without my work, and the many that got hurt more than I, our country would not be able to be the most desired living area in the world. And now, due to the punishment I received, I am unable to do the little things you might enjoy like a walk in the neighborhood or trail hiking, because I can’t walk more than about 15 feet without having to use medication and I spend about half the year in the hospital. I have no real life anymore. But that was my choice. And if you feel the money I make which is less than half of what I made in the military, that at that time had parts of that set aside for my retirement, that was so small they tried to justify it with “benefits” that most disappeared upon retirement, is too much, remember my original entry that said that less than 4% of the retired military members made that $100K a year. And I didn’t make that up. That came from the GAO.
I’m not asking for a living. I’m only asking that they do what they said they would do. And it seems every day’s another fight for uncle sugar to come through. But that other 96%, just by stepping forward and being willing to step in front of a bullet, as some did, have earned their first retirement. So please don’t rake everyone into the same trash can. Some deserve it. But many do not. And that’s the opinion I got from entries on this board before I typed. You want to weed out the problem shildren, I hope you get all of them. But don’t harm the others that don’t deserve the wrath by cutting their paycheck they earned while trying to survive on half of their recognized meager paycheck the govermment calls retirement. Like I said, they earned that. And if the government would have stayed consistent with the inflation when it went up 10% and the military got 2% raises. it would be a bill the public, like yourself, would be unhappy with. But if you think it’s high, go talk to the VA hospital patients and ask them what thy’ve got going. It ain’t much.
red