I’m not speaking as a veteran, but I think we need to make sure that actual combat veterans are well served, but that career military who don’t see combat are treated more like other government workers.
IMHO, if you serve a year in a combat zone, that is worth 5 years stateside.
There is a huge difference between someone who does aircraft maintenance in the US and someone who serves in a deployed brigade combat team.
I retired from the Air Force after 22 years as an E-7. My retired check is almost what an E-2 now makes. Our pension gets smaller in relation to current active pay every year.
Try to explain to the Marines from 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines and the many AF pilots and crew members that we thank them for their sacrifices during their action in May of 1975, but since they were not stationed in a combat zone for a year they do not qualify for the extra benefits. They were stationed on Okinawa and in less than 48 hours they were fighting and dying on a small island off the coast of Cambodia. (Mayaguez Incident) I was in Thailand at the time, just arrived a week before this, which was designated as a combat zone since I was drawing Hostile Fire/Imminent Danger Pay, and I lost several Security Police friends when one of those responding AF helicopters crashed. It was then that they called for the Marines to respond. What I’m trying to get thru to you is ALL active duty are COMBAT VETERANS in some way or another. The only time I was ever shot at was when I was stationed in Montana guarding one of those Minutemen Missile Silos. Was some drunk cowboy just having some fun.
I do not see a huge difference just because of where one is stationed. Fourteen of my years were spent at overseas locations. Numerous times I had been asked to “volunteer” for this and that, but I never did after seeing the fiaso of the Mayaquez Incident.
BTW, it is known as the final battle of the Vietnam War and the deceased names are the last on the Wall.
If the 20 year retirement wasn’t there I would not have made it a career.
Odd you should say that, my late husband was a jet mech and he served here, overtime, some holidays, overseas on a ship but not in a war. On the ship he told me they could not make him work more than 21 hours a day (or was it 20??) Does your job do that?
And the “military benefits” haha!!! The only benefits that are left are Tricare (which I thank God for) and the commissary, if only I lived close enough to a base to go there.
You have no idea the risks involved with being an aircraft mechanic, do you?
Granted, they are no where near like being shot at, but there are risks.
It’s gotten much better since I started and was serving, but injuries and sometimes death were common place on the flightline. Ever see what’s left of a crew chief after an aircraft wheel blows apart? Or what’s left of a jet engine mechanic who is maimed because another maintainer effed up large and did something they weren’t supposed to? No, these and many other stories are not presented to the vast majority of folks.
I have been exposed to products containing liberated asbestos fibers, composite materials, organic compounds, lubricants, fuels, MIBK, MEK, and numerous other chemicals all KNOWN to induce cancer...not counting the high risk environment of aircraft operating on a flightline.
I have numerous skin “conditions” as a result of exposures to the many items I encountered in my 20 years, loss of hearing, weak knees, to name a few.
The physical toll placed on my body in the 20 years I worked on the flightline is a hell of a lot worse than a REMF desk jockey that’s for sure...and I get to “wait and see” how long I get to live as a result of my chemical exposures.
But you picked us out instead of them, so you’re welcome for the “education”.