Military active and retired pay and benefits might be cut!

www.military.com...


This is just sad and disgusting. Sad is that cutting the pay and benefits of current and former troops is EVEN an option, and disgusting that the men and women in our government who decided to do so and even think about doing so. Want to cut the military budget? Stop spending hundreds of billions at a time on weapons and next generation fighters/subs/warships when we barely even use the ones we have now. Stop spending hundreds of billions on rebuilding and restructuring nations and governments in the Middle East.

Thank God I'm no longer still active, because I wouldn't want to have to deal with moral issues if this goes down.

Meanwhile our congress, while it contemplates this, continues to enjoy the OUTRAGEOUS benefits it has set up for itself, modern day royalty.

reply to post by Imightknow


Just to clarify op, they are not going to cut pay from retirees. I am still serving and they are talking about pay freezes. For the military to do what you propose would force many members to just flat get out. What they are contemplating is altering the retirement system just like they went from 50% to high 3 to redux to bringing back the high 3. They will alter the retirement and phase it in to try and save money

reply to post by Imightknow


Sad, but maybe also necessary to force a tipping point that ends our reckless and pointless wars. It pains me to see homeless young men, that I can obviously tell are veterans with PSTD and many others missing limbs. For what? Freedom? To "keep us safe"? Bull. Their blood of these brave lads has been spilled for profit alone even as it wrecks our treasury.

Originally posted by pajoly
reply to post by Imightknow

 

Sad, but maybe also necessary to force a tipping point that ends our reckless and pointless wars. It pains me to see homeless young men, that I can obviously tell are veterans with PSTD and many others missing limbs. For what? Freedom? To "keep us safe"? Bull. Their blood of these brave lads has been spilled for profit alone even as it wrecks our treasury.

There's never been a war that wasn't fought for profit in one way or another. No war in the history of mankind has been fought for one single purpose.

There are many reasons countries enter into wars with profit usually being one of them.

reply to post by Imightknow


Im curious if they are still going to be giving contractors huge sums of money for expensive mercenary forces.

I personally think they should have been eliminated altogether before our military personnel took ANY cut of any kind.

I suspect as time goes on, you will see a move from national military fighting forces to pure mercenary forces to get around the problem of "how to make a military turn on its own people." Just my two cents.

doesn't this make the third
time this has been threatened ???

They came through the last time(s)

so I guess we'll see

I wonder how many military personnel will
go AWOL due to breach of contract by
the Gov ?? They have every right to
walk off the job just like a civilian would
do under similar circumstances.

Welcome back home boys and girls

reply to post by kro32

There are many reasons countries enter into wars with profit usually being one of them.

War isn't necessarily profitable, unless you have a unlimited amount of funds -- taxpayers.

Originally posted by kro32


There are many reasons countries enter into wars with profit usually being one of them.

If "countries" were profiting that would make a ruthless and brutal kind of sense. But "countries" are not profiting here. As the person you replied to, Americans are bearing the costs of this war, in terms of blood and tax dollars, but America is not the one profiting. Corporations (including multinationals) are, other wealthy individuals are, some foreign, and banks of course. But these are no longer aristocracies bound to a land and her people. So "nations" dont profit from war any longer.

They pay for them, so that others may profit, And those others often no longer have any national loyalty.

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander

Originally posted by kro32


There are many reasons countries enter into wars with profit usually being one of them.

If "countries" were profiting that would make a ruthless and brutal kind of sense. But "countries" are not profiting here. As the person you replied to, Americans are bearing the costs of this war, in terms of blood and tax dollars, but America is not the one profiting. Corporations (including multinationals) are, other wealthy individuals are, some foreign, and banks of course. But these are no longer aristocracies bound to a land and her people. So "nations" dont profit from war any longer.

They pay for them, so that others may profit, And those others often no longer have any national loyalty.

I never said the country profit I said they are fought for profit. In every single war there will always be people or corporations that make money off it.

Alot of people got very wealthy during the American Revolution and the Civil War. Both of those were fought for very good reasons but there were also alot of people that pushed those wars who stood to gain a profit. Today we would call them part of the NWO I guess but just like today they've always been there.

And don't forget WW2. Sure it was great to stop the Nazi's and Japanese but at that time America was very isolationist. FDR pushed for America to enter for 1 main reason and that was to get us out of the depression...Profit

Some would even say he knew the attack on Pearl Harbor was coming but let it happen because he was having a hard time convincing America to go to war.

reply to post by Imightknow


I agree with Sthrndream. They know they cannot cut current retiree pay. But they can add onto the costs of Tri-Care. And they will look at a new way for our Servicemen & women to receive benefits in the future. I know that they are looking at a 15yr retirement plan. They are also looking at adding incentives for those who serve in highly dangerous and mission critical jobs. (Spec-Ops, CyberWar, etc)

This will hurt retention when it comes to senior NCOs & Officers. The officers are already leaving in droves from O-3 and above.

I am so glad I recently retired. People ask me if I miss the Army. I tell them, “HELL NO! I missed the old Army while I was in the new Army.”

It’s my opinion that we now mostly promote politicians rather than leaders nowadays. A sad state of affairs.


Nowadays, it's not about getting the job done, it's getting the top block on the OER or a excellent or two on the NCOER.

reply to post by Imightknow


I'm glad to see this is on here. I have friends still in the Navy & from what I'm hearing the Gov wants to raise the age for retired military benefits. Used to be you do at least 20 years you can collect. Now it might be you serve 20 years & get to wait 10-20 more years before you can collect

Down the USA!

reply to post by Swills


That's how the Military reserve does it. You collect your retirement at age 60. The reserves knock off six months per year deployed nowadays. But here's the kicker. You have to request your retirement in writing otherwise, you ain't getting squat. And you had best have your paperwork in order. It's not a automatic thing.

Originally posted by kro32

Today we would call them part of the NWO I guess but just like today they've always been there.

In the past, the people who could take a nation to war, and profit from said war, we also a part of that nation, and their fate was tied to the nations fate. (The aristocracy) While there were "corporations" of a kind, they did not rule the nations. (Although the Catholic Church came closest to being like a modern multinational in this way)

However, the "nation" did profit from the sacrifice of its people and arms in the past.

Originally posted by kro32
And don't forget WW2. Sure it was great to stop the Nazi's and Japanese but at that time America was very isolationist. FDR pushed for America to enter for 1 main reason and that was to get us out of the depression...Profit

While that kind of spending was useful in getting us out of the depression, it was the push to globalization at that time that helped get us into it. And it was more than the war that pulled us out of it. It was also the retreat from globalism not only in America, but in most nations. Thats an inconvenient economic FACT that many economists, as the whores for industry that they are, ignore. Globalization has caused BOTH economic crashes in the US, and the first one was remedied in large by retreating into "protectionism" of the nation and its working people.

No war any nation today enters into, in this economic climate, is for the good of the nation. Particularly not in a western democracy. Its expenditure at the expense of a nation and its people, for the benefit of wealthy economic forces who often are not bound solely to that nation. And so the fortunes of the economic force benefiting do not "trickle down" to the nation spending the money on behalf of that economic force.

Its pure and simple wealth transfer from a nation and its people into private hands via cost shifting. And its accomplished by these economic forces being the ones who fund, primarily, candidates for office who have the power to direct our military.

In other words, our leaders are renting the use of our soldiers, and our weaponry, and ALL the support for those, to these economic forces. But the rent is not placed in Americas coffers. Its placed into their campaign pots, and into the pockets of the family members that get highly paid jobs in these concerns. And then when the politician "retires" he can be paid huge amounts of money as "speaking fees" for showing up here and there. Which is little more than bribery after the fact.

I dont like the idea of using war for economic gain, BUT if my country, and my people were actually benefiting, I would mind less. Instead, my people and my country are being bankrupted to make economic forces not loyal to America rich, and I have a huge problem with that, as any American should.

Originally posted by kro32

Originally posted by pajoly
reply to post by Imightknow

 

Sad, but maybe also necessary to force a tipping point that ends our reckless and pointless wars. It pains me to see homeless young men, that I can obviously tell are veterans with PSTD and many others missing limbs. For what? Freedom? To "keep us safe"? Bull. Their blood of these brave lads has been spilled for profit alone even as it wrecks our treasury.

There's never been a war that wasn't fought for profit in one way or another. No war in the history of mankind has been fought for one single purpose.

There are many reasons countries enter into wars with profit usually being one of them.

I'll buy that, but some are more purely pointless than others, not to mention unprovoked invasion.

You know what's gonna happen right?

The average military guy will see his pay and benefits cuts... while Blackwater mercenaries and the like will continue to get their 250-300k$. Of course, no big program will be cut... and the insane R&D costs won't be cut. Nor will no-bid contracts.

The only ones who will get cut in the military budget are the troops.

reply to post by Vitchilo


I suspect so. As corporations continue to undermine real democracy, and nations in general (with moves to trade unions) expect to see national military forces outlawed altogether in favor of mercenary forces who end up in control of all the arms and weaponry WE paid for.

That way, you can easily have a mercenary force from one part of the world brought in to subdue another, and even use their own weapons against them. And totally get around the "national loyalty" issue.

Keep blindly accepting orders and fighting wars for politicians who think they're royalty!

Well atleast we saved Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and AIG ect. ect........Says alot about a nation by how it spends it's money.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


While I do agree with most of what you said there are a couple of points I take issue with. We actually experienced the depression than recovered a bit but actually started spinning into a second one which was avoided due to simply the war. We went from around 25% unemployment to not having enough workers to fill the jobs in a matter of a couple short years. I do agree with your assessment about after the war and globalization however but had the war not happened it is unclear if that would have been possible as quickly.

Also in regards to corporations not dictating what a country does I would point you to Hearst and his newspaper empire and the spanish-american war. That war was pushed by his papers to such a point that the government had found itself running out of reasons to not fight. Once the sinking of the Maine happened Hearst, through his newspapers, rallied the populace to force the government to take action.

Whether he was motivated by profit or personal reasons is still debated by historians but it is unlikely that war would have been fought had it not been through his influence.