Replies

To your #1 Of course a professional military needs a small core of combat professionals who are career. A 20-year pensioned stint in the motor pool is not something everyone is entitled to. We can’t afford it.

To your #2 Please do not thank me for doing my duty. I served, I moved on.

The military of the last 20+ years has been the most political, politically correct ever. We’ve engaged in conflicts that did not need to be extended conflicts - if we even needed to be involved at all.

We can’t even cut our military down to a $500B a year budget without howls of entitlement. Then it is claimed there is no way to field an effective force for that much (little?) money. Nonsense.

Let’s talk about your CONTRACT. Who pays? where does the money come from? How many like you were promised someone elses money to be paid some time in the future?

We have so many people who were promised things from the US Government that we can’t possibly pay everyone everything. DO you think you deserve a multi-million dollar pension package for your service? If so how do we pay for yours and everyone elses multi-million dollar pensions - both in and out of the military.

It would be nice if we had, above all, a vibrant private sector that could pay all of the promises made by others that were in your CONTRACT and in everybody elses entitlement obligations. We do not have a vibrant private sector. We cannot pay everybody everything. We won’t pay everybody everything. Pretending we can and will doesn’t make it so.

You make it sound like fortune awaits everybody who works in the private sector, and that government prevents you from achieving that fortune - so all who work in government deserve to have a multi-million dollar package of pension benefits - and to extract that from the folks in the private sector to get it (because we’re all rich in the private sector, and can afford it).

We are not. Most folks in the private sector would be fine if they didn’t have to pay the massive tab for outsized government - including government pension promises in your CONTRACT and other promises and benefits.

Do you know what happens when you can’t pay a CONTRACT in the private sector? Default. If you think that does not apply to government promises you are mistaken.

I agree with you - it is NOT an argument to be won or lost between us. ALL government promises for future checks have to come from present revenues + borrowing. When the present revenues cannot support the obligations and the borrowing, the checks stop (or inflate away).

There are tens of millions who think the government will continue to have the ability to pay them.

I think that is an assumption that is not based on the fiscal realities before us. Maybe I’m wrong and we can continue to punish and squeeze the private sector with taxes while also borrowing vast amounts of money without penalty.

THAT is the discussion we need to have.

Please read, it is long, but I think I have some counterpoints for you to at least consider.

Well, military service is different from government service. Even that 20 year guy in the motor pool gets the shit end of the stick every now and then.

The thing is, the country decided on a professional military with a long term commitment of benefits to entice and retain a certain (which actually is a small percentage) amount of qualified people. Far fewer reenlistments are allowed than you may think (having been given the duty of reenlistment NCO I know). But still, it was a commitment. You seem to be saying that a commitment is a something that can be simply dropped by one party whenever it is convenient to do so, as in the case of the United States having overspent itself. However, there is no one size fits all. This is what gave us sequestration, where the military has to cut a percentage equal to other half of the government, without looking at the value of the particular program nor the current needs of the country.

Witness Hagel earlier this week committing the government to cutting the military in a massive way (compared to the past) and by the weekend the Ukraine starts to spin out of control. While it might not seem to be such a big deal, we have no vital interests in the Ukraine, from a historic perspective, it is huge. An inconvenient truth is we actually have a military treaty with the Ukraine to prevent a Russian attack (and they promised to give their nukes to the Russians as part of the agreement). If they publically call on us to enforce our treaty obligation, how do we do so? Do we do so? What a mess! What does failure to act on our agreement say to the North Koreans vis-à-vis South Korea? China and Taiwan? Israel and Iran? Think quick; others are watching! Chamberlain at Munich led to September 1, 1939...

I retired as a Senior Master Sergeant. My AFSC was 3C090 which is Comms-Computers. The whole enlisted Air Force SEEMS to be REMFs but 3C0’s do combat comms, Red Force and other combat missions. Even so, I will agree that in the Air Force enlisted ranks, only the SPs are truly a military force. That changed after 9/11 with the demand for combat comms and forward air controllers, but there ya go. I retired before 9/11.

Note however the Air Force didn’t pay me to do comm-computers, but rather they paid me to be a Senior Master Sergeant. I was, at that rank, capable of leading in many different roles. Still, my AFSC was constantly getting robbed by recruiters in the civilian world for competent technicians; and yes, they made lots more than we who stayed on were being paid. My own experience is that yes, I could have made much more on the outside. You yourself said you didn’t get paid much but was proud to serve. Compensation for serving longer than a one hitch up and out should offer more than just kudos for patriotism. Especially for those who have families. My wife couldn’t keep a career, either, as much as she wanted to. When I PCS’d, I still had a job. She didn’t, and if lucky, got something (she got a substitute teacher job at San Vito AS, Italy, and that was it..one or two times a month). When I retired, her resume wasn’t looking so good as it would had I simply served once and got out.

Now you’re probably thinking, “Well then, you should have just got out and pursued your fortune!” But dude, I did/do love my country and my Air Force! I liked serving! I liked being the best I could be. Still, the PROMISE of the pension, the medical care, the continued relationship as a retiree beyond the gate kept me in when my wife cried and was bored to tears, while I was jacked up by A-hole Lts and Capts who thought they knew it all, when the shit would hit the fan and everything would go to hell in seconds (and yes, I thought about that a lot—I spent seven years in ADCOM/NORAD/SAC running comm-computer scenarios for Missile Warning). Now you want, after I did my half, to take it away because it cost too much (while a HELL of a lot is wasted and given out for free), while I’m now older and sick is a big hardship on me. And you (the country) got my services for very cheap all those years I served, and I do think I did a damn fine job, and in my many different ways, kept the country strong and out of war. Can I say that? I’m very proud of my service. I have not one ounce of distain for those who did not serve and/or those fine airmen who got out after one term. I used to smile inside when people said what a hero I was, when I was having so much fun. Still, I was told “Keep at it! We’ll reward you at the end for all your hard work, sucking gas mask rubber (I am somewhat claustrophobic and 12 plus hours in chemical gear had me almost, but not quite, ready to tear that sucker off and scream in front of everyone. The colonel told me I was the best, most intense senior NCO when we did battle staff but little did he know I was so focused because otherwise I would tear out of chem gear. Condidtiion Black and lying under the table was probably the worst, as I couldn’t DO anything!) and a host of other things.

Again, I think you are not looking at both sides here.

The REASON for all this, what you see as government largesse we cannot afford, is RETENTION.

The military policy of the nation is supposed to be to protect the country and its interests. How it goes about it in a time when its budget is limited is to come up with smart ways to save money while getting the best possible outcome. Retention is a fiscal policy. It cost money, but the return is less money spent fixing problems that a bunch of new guys without anyone to lead and help them would otherwise create.

You and I can debate retention, but I’m sure we can both agree at a certain level, retention is a must for a modern, technical military.

I think to blithely say that the pensions, housing, commissary, etc. model we’ve come up with over the past 60 years is wrong, without thinking through the consequences or at least offering replacement ideas to continue retaining quality people is penny-wise and pound-foolish. I would agree that the whole system and packages should be looked at and constantly tweaked to respond to the times. However, once an agreement between the government and a military person is met and signed, the rest of us should at least honor it as much as we can, no? Especially in a time when the giving out of free iPhones is being INCREASED and Food stamps (EBT) is at its highest ever. So far I have heard of NO plans by the administration to cut ANY of that. It appears they have their priorities; “Pennies for defense, but not one cent taken from welfare!” I am terribly sad to see my country in the fiscal crisis it is in. I actually would give up many of my benefits if the cuts were made all around. But come on, the democrats are INCREASING welfare and free handouts with our money and all we do is talk. The Republicans themselves just raised the debt ceiling. Obama won’t use that to further fund anything military-personnel, ops and maintenance, hardware—just more free give-outs. And our side is going to jump on the cut the military bandwagon as a fix?!

What, ultimately, would be the economic outcome to lose a war? I live in the South; the only part of America that did. It set us back many generations. Our first duty is to see no enemy defeats us. Its that simple. We’re just quibbling over how best to achieve that.