Over at the World Politics Review, Abu Mugawama who is actually Andrew Exsum, has written a very provocative article which I commend to our readers. Your thoughts.
Rather than choose between these two visions of military service, however, we Americans have opted for a middle option whereby we have a professional military in which men and women provide a public service — like police officers or emergency medical technicians — but are elevated to the highest echelons of publicly bestowed honor. This ambiguity hinders our ability to make even basic reforms to the military pay and benefits that will soon cripple the defense budget. And it contributes to the creation of a praetorian guard that threatens rather than protects the fabric of our society.
First they came after the cops, firemen, and teachers. Ten years ago firemen were heroes and couldn’t buy their own meals at the store. Now fire and police are getting laid off in droves and their pensions and salaries are getting cut, cut, cut. The military will be next. People who have no hope of ever seeing a pension or free health care are starting to ask why a 22 year old Admin clerk Sgt with a high school diploma and a family gets free college tuition, free housing, and free health care on top of a salary higher than most entry level college grads, who have to pay for those things out of their meager salaries.
I told guys this a few years ago and they laughed it off. Of course many of them are now retired from the military and complaining they can’t find a decent civilian job. The senior enlisted and field grades are shocked when they get out and find out what it is like out in the “civilian world”. They expected civilian employers to bend over backwards to accommodate them, despite all the articles about veteran unemployment rates. I am reminded of Rene Gagnon, the Iwo Jima flagraiser, who was working as a janitor when he died despite all the fame and the promises made to him while he was on the war bond tour. Talk is cheap.
Enlistment is a contract between a Service Member and their government. This contract should be kept. If promises are made for X benefits in return for service, the government should not come back later and say “well, we’re cutting benefits to X-”.
On the other hand the Setvice Members should not expect more than in the contract. A lot of returning vets somehow think they are entitled to lifelong payments in the form of disability etc. While actual injury should be cared for and compensated as part of this contract, many many many SM are filing trivial claims and expect lifelong “free” money following their 2 or 4 years of active service.
As far as cops & firefighters, they are generally well compensated, and in union states, over compensated. Agreements in pay and benefits should be adhered to, but future hires may not see such generosity in the future. Strong-arm efforts by unions to raise pay even further will necessarily lead to lay-offs, and they have only themselves to blame.
As to the post-9/11 warm & fuzzy for police, fire and military that seems to have waned, I refer you to Mr. Kipling. He explains it quite well in “Tommy”.
Yes, American servicemembers are a Special Interest by definition and by behavior.
Cops, firefighters, and teachers are LOCAL and at most State responsibilities. If they get screwed, it’s their neighbor the Local/State politico doing it.
The basic model requires a percentage of pay with additional benefits:
Access to post facilities, e.g. commissary
Reduced cost medical care: retiree Tri-to-get-care and VA
These are not equitable because Regulars get money and TriCare upon retirement. Reserves and Guard get the privilige of being “Gray-Area” retirees – no money, and no eligibility for TriCare until after age 60.
So make all of it equitable, with changes:
Offer parcels of land in exchange for cash
Delay payments and benefits until age 60
Transfer the retiree to civilian care, or if s/he has a service-connected disability/disease – the VA who will guide them into death, patriotically, as they are currently staffed to do.
Set aside certain jobs for them upon retirement – GS can only be veterans
The military is a special interest, and it’s sad that our generals and admirals who are guaranteed lucrative employment after retirement are immediately taking the budge knives to those who depend on them, and not the wasteful, duplicative organizations, acquisitions, and policies that triple the cost of a good Army while provided zero benefit.
They want to lower military costs, try lowering Congressional and officer pay first, then go after the benefits and complain about the paychecks of E5s. Can also go about cutting wasteful spending like buying iPads instead of cheaper Android/Windows tablets that are more rugged and have more options available to them, along with the ability to negotiate them even cheaper because most tablet producers don’t have Apple’s ego (just as a recent and close to home example).
People want to know why the military gets paid what they do, it’s called writing a blank check up to and including the life of the service member; regardless of what their actual job is.