Posted on 12/13/2013 5:39:14 PM PST by ReaganCowboy
In 24 years of active military service, I never lived any closer than 300 miles to my family. Sometimes it was eight time zones away.
My wife and I moved five times in first ten years. All five children were born at different duty stations; the first one was born overseas. It was two months before the grandparents saw him.
I’ve been deployed three times to hostile fire zones. I’ve been shot at, had grenades throw at me, had a pistol put to my head, seen a SCUD missile blow up overhead and it’s wreckage land a quarter-mile away, and been in two riots, one of which required getting helicopter gunships cover my escape while being responsible for the lives of eight war correspondents. In the other riot I appeared on live TV to urge calm.
I ran countless miles to stay in shape. I took physical fitness tests and was weighed every six months and for every school I attended. I’ve taken urine tests to see if I was on illegal drugs. I’ve had my background investigated every five years, and I’m been polygraphed. I wore a helmet and body armor as my daily uniform over 1,000 times. Most days I wore boots, not shoes. I have served in the rain, the freezing rain, the sleet, the snow, the ice – and in the sun when it was 120 degrees in the shade and when exposed metal reaches 140 degrees. Once in Africa I went 45 days without a shower. I’ve served in hurricane winds too. And I worked in the Pentagon the day the plane hit and in the days afterward while the fire still burned.
Overseas I picked up a parasitic disease that was previously unknown to American medical doctors, for which I was treated thirty days with an experimental chemical compound the main component of which was formerly used to clean barnacles off ship hulls and for which the Environmental Protection Agency outlawed as too toxin for the ecosystem, while living two months on an HIV+ ward…where I was cross-contaminated with Hepatitis B from an AIDS patient via my nurse. I now have no cartilage in my knees; I have a torn rotator cuff on my dominant arm; I have a herniated disc in my lower back and I have obstructive sleep apnea from over-developed neck muscles built up to support a four pound helmet, nine pound flak vest and a forty pound rucksack, while carrying an eight pound rifle.
I have routinely pulled shifts of 24-48 hours, while charged with leading over one hundred other men doing the same dangerous duty as I. Due to demands of my profession I missed the stock market run-up of the 80’s and the housing market run-up of the ninety’s.
For all of this I receive a pension less than of half my highest total compensation package, based on a salary of which at one point in my career was 23% below comparable civilian pay. My retiree health care plan, as declared by act of Congress, only minimally meets the standards of the new mandatory federal health care system, and is fully only available to me in an ever decreasing number of military communities in which I am the lowest of patient priorities.
Based on Department of Defense retirement and mortality statistics I will die 11 years earlier than a normal American man of my age. It would take seventeen and one-half years of my combined retainer pay – yes, I can be called back to duty in case of full mobilization – AND my 80% Veterans Administration disability compensation pay to equal the eleven years of my current post-retirement civilian salary that my earlier death will cause my estate to miss out on.
And none of this career was automatic. I served in an up-or-out Army, with progressively more restrictive promotion selection rates of 95%, 85%, 50% and 19%. If you missed a promotion gate you were out of the active service, with a severance pay but no 401(k) to carry over to your next job. And yes, veterans are discriminated against in the job market. In fact I was non-selected for active promotion at one point in my career, due to the downsizing of the military after end of the Cold War, the Gulf War and implementation our new ‘peace dividend.’ I did get a severance package. I then spent the last half of my uniformed career on active duty in the reserve components and am subsequently one of less than five thousand Soldiers down-sized after the first Gulf War to successfully string together a long enough stretch of active and reserve duty to earn a military retirement before the age of 60 – when reservists are eligible to receive their significantly less ‘retainer pay.’ In order to draw active retirement pay I had to pay back 100% of that prior severance package, even though 20% of the original amount was taken off the top in the form of federal withholding tax. Isn’t that double-taxation? No one’s inflated my retirement package. In fact, the only efforts to adjust my retirement have been to change the basis of calculating my retirement to lesser formula. Or better yet, a move to quadruple the premium I now pay for retirement health care – a benefit that was promised 24 years ago as ‘free for life.’ Did my recruiter lie to me? Or did Congress?
My wife, who followed me around the world when she could and raised five kids by herself when she couldn’t, who gave up a career of her own to be my support system, will get a whopping twenty-seven thousand dollars a year survivor benefit pension should I die before she does, out of which she’ll still have to pay premiums for retiree health and dental care. And she’ll lose that pension if she finds love again and remarries. At least I am eligible to be buried a Veterans Administration cemetery, or if there’s still room by then, in Arlington National Cemetery. Of course it’s a six-week backlog to be buried at Arlington… even in death for the military, it’s ‘hurry-up-and-wait.’
Over compensated? I was part of the all volunteer American military that re-vitalized itself after the Vietnam War, that trained superbly hard for war with the Soviets, that absolutely crushed Iraq in the first Gulf War and that re-trained itself to simultaneously fight the longest counter-insurgency campaigns and world-wide war against terrorists in our history. Like a very old Legionnaire, I am now home from my empire’s wars and I am enjoying what my government chose to compensate me with. I am a grateful citizen.
My government can change present and future military compensation with simple legislative and executive ease, and even the past promises of retiree compensation. If it does I will not grumble, but instead whisper ‘good luck’ in raising a loyal, well trained Roman legion in the generation to come. We may well return to our former status as a true Greek militia nation, as was our Revolutionary genesis, and maybe we should. Maybe that’s all we can afford. Just recall that as a militia nation we only successfully fought wars on our own front, and never led the world.
Expeditionary armies are not fiscally expedient. Decide who your enemies are, and either make peace or prepare for war. Conscription is a politically expensive alternative to the all volunteer force in the short term but fiscally cheaper in the very long term (because draftees don’t usually hang around long enough to retire.) Damn those disabled veterans – they are breaking the Treasury! And dogs and retired Soldiers – keep off the grass and get off the dole!
the problem with govt pensions isn’t the military pensions... it’s all the govt employees with 6-figure salaries that retire after 15 yrs to 6-figure pensions (a CA lifeguard w/ $200k pension comes to mind)... only to grab another gig and start building another.
of course, when budget cuts come... the very first place the big govt type aim at is military and military pensios
Thank you for your service.
I have even more contempt for the gangsters in DC.
If that were possible.
Very good essay!
i just returned this evening from ft benning. said good bye to my son at his infantry graduation. pray for him please.
Thank you...I served 21 years on active duty and retired as an Major, after working my way up the enlisted ranks. My pension (before takes and deductions) is about $3,000 a month. I consider it quite generous and I am eternally grateful for my opportunity to serve and the benefits I’ve received.
By comparison, Lois Lerner spent 34 years working for the government. She never had to pass PT tests, lead men and women in combat, or meet exacting standards for personal conduct. Instead, she devoted most of her time to advancing political agendas and persecuting individuals who had opposing views. Much of her conduct was criminal and she should be in federal prison. Instead, she retired as a senior civil service employee earlier this year...her annual pension: $110,000 a year, and with far better health care benefits.
But it’s military retirees who are breaking the bank, you understand.
First, the pace of operations the past twelve years has been ridiculous. The size of the force that would be necessary to maintain the kind of expeditionary forces we have fielded would be three to five times the size of our military. The planners anticipated the need we have had, and decided to squeeze the regular, reserve and guard units, instead of put the actual cost of the wars to the Congress.
But, if we can think of the military experience apart from the strain imposed by the recent pace of operations, its a good deal, albeit with pluses and minuses. The writer dwells on the negatives. But, what about not having to contribute to the cost of your health insurance or to your pension plan, like us PFCs; and, being able to retire after twenty years? The proof that, everything considered, it’s a good deal is to be found in recruitment and retention.
Now, with regard to promotion, the military has its reasons for recruiting more junior officers than it will probably need as senior officers down the road ten to twenty to thirty years. A consequence of this is that there normally is an “up or out” policy. What is unfair about this “up or out” policy is that if you’re forced out, you lose what would have been your equity in your retirement plan. Over in the private sector, companies have to fund their pensions and the pension vests to the employee. But, in federal service, you have an unfunded pension that just goes away if you’re in for, say, twelve years and then forced out. This can and should be addressed.
Another item that can and should be addressed is allowing those retirees and others who qualify for medical care, to receive a voucher for private health insurance so they’re not tethered to certain medical facilities. I realize many vets prefer their VA medical facilities to dealing with the private sector for health care, so I wouldn’t just make a 100 percent conversion. But, I would develop an option for those currently in the system.
I only have two words: Thank you!
My family’s military service to the republic date back to the Revolutionary War and include a stint of body guard duty for a general named Washington. Was given a nice piece of land on the south bank of Potomac River near Mt Vernon as a reminder. The Civil War almost wiped the family out; we wore both Blue and Grey.
Among our papers are hand written litters from Wilson and FDR directing male members NOT to accept wartime commissions because they were performing critical duties for the Federal Government. There is also a “Short Snorter” Silver Certificate from mid 1942 with Recife and Dakar on it.
I was the last to serve the Republic in a military capacity, career AF with the majority of it spent in SpecOps. When my son wanted to join in the late 1990’s I did everything I could to convince him not to, the writing was already clearly on the walls. I was successful. And everything I have seen since then tells the two of us we made the right choice.
The Republic can not long stand when its civilian leaders, such as they are, refuse to be honorable men and live up their and their predecessors promises to those who stood on the walls defending them.
I think you will appreciate this perspective ping!
One side of my family prior to my generation was on both sides of WWII, European part of war .
Naturally after the war they could see each other again, the ones who made it.
When they start taking down crosses and nativity scenes, and letting homosexuals in, and putting women on the frontline, its time to just stop your kids signing up.
If there was a draft tomorrow, what would you do? Make sure your kid was hidden, or let him go to war for a TOTUS who lives by the codes of Lenin, to get shot and killed because his overwatch was applying lipstick, then have him buried in some dank little grave site with a totally 100% secular obelisk that just bears a number rather than a name?
That’s the future.
My family all wore Grey. We were pre Revolution settlers to boot, just went west. Whatever that means today. I hate to say but I think we may all be scr*wed.
Thank you for the service by the way. Though I guess right now you must wonder why you bothered. America has declined faster than anyone predicted. I mean... Obama... president?
Tell the government they’d better start recruiting illegal aliens as no one else capable of critical thought would fight or die for the corrupt controlling ruling class in D.C.
But welfare and all the countless other government giveaways remain intact?
Obamaphones remain but our valiant veterans get stiffed on their retirement?
Dishonorable, disgusting and delusional.
Excellent essay.
My ancestors served in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, WWI and WWII, Korea, and Vietnsm. My dad served 31 yrs in the Air Force, my husband 21 yrs in the Navy, and I served 20 yrs in the Air Force. My stepson now serves in the Air Force and just was selected for staff sgt. I am proud of serving, and it was an honor to medically support our nation’s finest & their dependents. But I do not want my stepson to make it a career, that is for certain. And I have to let him make that decision. The military is NOT the same, and our country is in its final days like Rome. Its time for my family to take care of itself and not waste tears on what is left behind. I believe we are living in the endtimes. Nuff said....
Thank you brother, for your service. Our political leaders have let us down.
I know exactly how you feel.
Thank you for posting. You’re right on so many levels.
“My wife...who gave up a career of her own to be my support system...”
THIS part sucks. I am watching this play out with my little bro. Georgia, Colorado, Iraq, S Carolina, Iraq...
He’s got a girlfriend. Very, very smart. She has a career. I understand why they haven’t married.
So does he get out and live off of her, or does he stay in and never have kids...
The whole thing sucks.
The DRAFT will be back....mark my words, and GIRLS will be included!!
“...I’ve been shot at, had grenades throw at me, had a pistol put to my head, seen a SCUD missile blow up overhead and it’s wreckage land a quarter-mile away, and been in two riots, one of which required getting helicopter gunships cover my escape ...”
... and that was just North Philly on a typical Friday night in summer...
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