BehindBlueI's
Grandmaster
- Oct 3, 2012
- 26,608
- 113
So, a career in the military meant poor pay, but good benefits and pension.
So, now we'll have poor pay, and poor benefits and pension.
sure, that's not a recipe for disaster.
I remember when I made PFC my monthly pay was $1010.10. Without the benefits, I made more money at Pizza Hut.
I get that many enlisted men leave with no retirement. That's ok. They are young men leaving in their 20's for the most part. They are walking away with an education package that's pretty considerable. The GI Bill is one of the most successful government programs ever to bring people into the middle class. Trying to screw the 20 year vet who's spent his prime years to say that the 20 somethings need a piece of the pie is horse poo. Even if you serve all 20 in peace time, you've away from your family for years on hardship tours, months and weeks on long training exercises, days on staff duty, etc. You give up a huge chunk of your life. Even in the heavy deployment unit I was in where nothing happened quickly I had to have permission to travel more than 250 miles from post. You are just not your own person even when you're off.
This is, by and large, an issue that stems from a smaller and smaller percentage of the population having served and understanding what its like. When less of the general population is touched by the military life, fewer elected "leaders" are touched, and this is the sort of thing that results.