I have a proposal to save money on Veteran's benefits, and I'm active duty

I was thinking of something the other day that might be a reasonable way to save some money, and it has to do with Veteran's pensions.

Look, right now, if you do 20 years in the military, you get a lifetime retirement of 50% of you top-three years of base pay for the rest of your life.

That means that if you join the military at age 18, retire or go "Fleet Reserve" at age 38, and live til you're 90, you get 62 years of retirement benefits. You earn 2.5% for every year over 20, so at 30 year of service, you get 75% of base pay.

Here's my simple proposal. Don't make it a lifetime entitlement. Limit it to the number of years served. You could do this and still leave the lifetime TRICARE or VA Health Insurance alone.

Under my proposal, if a person serves 20 years, they earn 20 years of retirement pay. Serve 30 years and earn 30 years of retirement. That person who retired at 38 could rely on a pension until age 58, leaving a short span to bridge to 62 and initial Social Security if needed.

If you look at the pay scale for active duty military, there is no way that 38 year old is going to be able to live on retirement pay alone. He/She is going to have to find another job, and the overwhelming majority end up having 2nd and even 3rd careers. I see no reason to pay retirement pay to someone for upwards of 60 years for 20 years of service.

You could take the saving and pour it into VA health care, or quality of life improvements, or even education benefits.

What say you?

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1.- Most serve one, two terms, no retirement.

2.- Lifers have issues that actually make that retirement a necessity.

You might get it.

Oh and GI Bill it was a FIGHT to get it improved.

Oh and a third point... you do know that a member of I don't know, XE costs three to five times to deploy than a US Service member... if we really want to stop this cost, well get out of the wars OR... have a draft and STOP using Mercenary Forces. Many of those by the way were trained by Uncle Sam.

I have no problem with Vets having superb pensions, but i would think (disability retirements being another thing entirely) that they should only be able to start collecting at 62 or whatever as that is the base (or early) retirement age for many of us in the private sector. Why should they be able to start collecting after 20 years. If they leave the service for other work, fine, but why should they collect a pension at that time?

Ask someone who retired in 1991 with 20 years of service how prepared they are to give up their retirement pay. This would be their year to do so.

Sounds like a repub-plan to screw military retirees out of their justly-earned retirement. There have already been plans floated to do just that with their health benefits.

Nope - I think it is a lousy plan.

people get a better quality of life not find ways of taking that away from people!

Apparently there is not a heavy market for middle aged men/women starting new careers. Especially in today's economy.

but life serving in the military is no cake walk. You may never have been in a war, but you've been searated from yu family for YEARS. Some time off & many months active somewhere that's usually not in the states or anywhere you could take you family with you. That's very different from any regular job, and deserves a lot more compensation than a regular job.

I don't think we should be looking at vet benifits for savings. Th waste and BIG BUCKS is in too many wars, too many ships, weaponry, and privitatizing of the many jobs to do the thins our own troops used to do at a fraction of the cost.

Working long hours, being on call 7/24/365.
Earning little pay with the assurance (yeah , right) that you can retire and get retirement pay as soon as you retire, not 20 years down the road.
Earning little pay and being away from family for months/years at a time.
Earning little pay and being assures you have free hospitalization for life (That didn't work out did it?)

Knowing that I get a retirement pay and that fricking idiots like the original poster can say what they say because I fought for that right!

You could then eliminate a helluva lot of future military monuments, burials, hospitalizations, retirements, and the need for more wars to keep the MIC in business.

leaving at the end of their contract to join merc outfits like Blackwater.

If we reduce the incentive to stay in for 20-30 years, those problems will get worse not better.

Absolutely stupid.

The OP has NO appreciation for the demographics of WHO are veterans and
apparently lacks ALL awareness of the risks that ALL persons who serve in
a combat zone face...regardless of whether or not they have been in a firefight.

And I very much appreciate your current service,

Well, if it is real.

I would agree with you were it not for the fact that I'm entering my 27th year of service in the United States Navy, but you're right, I have absolutely no clue about the "demographics" or "awareness" of the risks.

I'm not proposing any changes to how we care LIFETIME for injured and disabled veterans, whether that injury or disability occurs in wartime or peacetime, I'm simply saying that paying someone 60 years of retirement benefits for 20 years of service is generous.

I also don't feel that this "military worship" is healthy. Yes, we sacrifice. Yes, we are separated from our families, and Yes, some of us are going to get killed and injured in war, but I strongly feel that I am not subject to any more praise, or recognition, or "credit" for the greatness of America than the high school teacher, policeman or fireman.

If, and again, this is a big "IF", the most serious threat to our nation is debt and deficits, then why not look at some of the sacred cows. I'm not talking about reducing Social Security or Medicare or Veterans Health Care, but if we are serious about cuts, there seems to be some excess here.

I guess I'm doing what Americans are known for. Looking for solutions to make us a better society, even if it means sacrifice from myself.

Sorry!

First, thank you for your service to our country.

Some little things: 38 to 90 is 52 years, not 62. Your example also talks about 75% of base pay, but refers to someone who is in the service for 20 years who would get only 50%. Not that these don't really affect your overall point, but I figured I'd point them out.

As someone who has never been in the military, I don't feel I know enough to comment about your ideas. But I imagine when people are talking about shared sacrifice, they probably mean things like this--someone already serving our country who is looking for ways to contribute even more. My guess, however, is that there are lots of people (including me) who could stand to give something before we ask our servicemen and servicewomen for more.

the military that are still perfectly capable of working. I know many of them that have received pensions for decades and still managed to work and retire from a career in a coal mine or a steel mill. How in the hell can you be disabled and work such a job for 40 years? Talk about SS being the third rail of politics, their isn't anyone that will touch that one.

Which is - until you're 60, that retirement is actually a retainer, not a retirement.

If you accept retirement after 20 years, you are put into an IRR status and you are supposed to be agreeing to be called up into the reserves up until the age of 60. If you don't agree to go into IRR status, you have to wait until you're 60 before you can collect.
That's why someone with a "less than honorable" discharge after 20 years of service can't collect retirement until they're either 60 and ask to get their record expunged, or they get their discharge reviewed and upgraded before then; they're not eligible for the IRR. And my understanding is that they only get the amount for time served before whatever infraction that gave them a less than honorable once they get their record expunged. (BTW, general discharges are no issues.)

As a retired reservist, IRR status is not an option, so I can't collect anything until I'm 60, when I'm officially retired. I also can't get into TriCare (as an active duty retiree can) until I'm officially retired in eight years.

Also, the DoD pays for not only the retainer and retirement - and TriCare, the single payer type health insurance the military uses for it's active duty and retirees - not the VA.

I suppose your premise is that the DoD can save money by getting rid of the retainer and just tell everyone to wait until they're 60 to be eligible for retirement and TriCare. Which is true -

But here's the other issue of ability - which explains why the retainer was established for retirees in the first place. A little background - when I joined up in 1977, there weren't that many retirees based on years in service - only one in six people who enlisted actually served long enough to retire. Officers tended to comprise the largest group of retirees, because they can technically retire their commission after 7 years of service; but they don't get much if they don't do much time. Something like $500 a month if they're over 6 years of service?

A large number of retiree payments are actually based on service-related disability; and if they had served at least 18 years before they became too disabled to meet the physical standards to be deployed, they were officially retired. Doesn't matter if they can ride a desk for the next ten to twenty years; the nature of the military is such that one is not supposed to be riding any one desk for more than three years before they get transferred, and when that time comes around, they are required to be able to take any duties that are available for them - which means a 50-year-old soldier is still required to be able to regularly hump 75 lbs of gear for several miles at a time when transfer time comes.

And when I enlisted, there was this rule of thumb concerning military retirement - every ten years you serve takes 5 years off your life:
Average life expectancy in the 1970's for the average civilian was 75-78 years, give or take a few.
Average life expectancy of a soldier or sailor who retired at 38 - 40 (20 years of service) was between 65 and 70.
Average life expectancy of the soldier/sailor who retired at 48 -50 (30 years of service) was between 55 and 60.

Back in the day, most military retirees lived long enough to just be able to apply for Social Security retirement. Enabling a sailor or soldier who has given time and health in service to be able to pass the rest of his or her life in relative comfort and be able to spend time with family was the majority of the reason behind giving the retainer.

Nowadays, it's not so radical a difference, but health and life expectancy is still a significant issue amongst the 20 year+ retirees.

Soooo....
As to what you are proposing. I probably can't quibble too much with cutting back on the retainer for physically qualified retirees - soldiers and sailors who retire after 20/30 years and are technically in the IRR; if they are considered reservists, the argument can be made that they should be treated like reservists. Meaning that they are eligible for their retirement and TriCare health insurance when they're 60.

But for those who are retired due to disability - well, personally I, who have the creaks, pains, and scars and other debilitations of twenty years of service myself - would prefer they keep their retirement. They earned it, just like any Union worker who is pulling down an early disability pension after 20 - 25 years working labor-intensive, body-breaking, factory work.

Haele

but, suppose instead of having to wait to age 60, you had the option of taking 20 or 30 years of retirement for 20 or 30 years of service. Would you do it, or wait until age 60?

Let's see, last year husband's retirement came to $15,362. This for 20 years of intimately working with things that kill people and break things, hearing shot to hell from working flight lines, probably going to die from cancer from the shit in those things that kill ...., 12 of those 20 on remote tours where families weren't authorized (two of them in Vietnam) and finally not knowing from one day to the next where he'd be and what he'd be doing. You also might want to read the punitive articles of UCMJ - few human rights, damn few civil ones.

Now I figure that 15K just about covers the JP-8 the Blue Angels use up at maybe two air shows. To put it another way, if hubby lives to 78 (ten more years) the tax payers of this country will be out o/a 700K and I'm allowing for those lavish pay increases (about $200 per annum when we get them). 700K may cover a day trip to Arctic Circle for a Buff (air and ground crew pay, fuel, equipment, etc).

You're getting a bargain chum. Wouldn't recommend screwing with it because without the career noncoms you won't have an armed forces. You'll either have an armed mob or mercs that will really cost ya.

Trust me, we career enlisted types don't hang on for the fun of it. Yeah I'm one of those blood suckers too.

it is not like he made a bundle and retired rich.

Yeah if we moved to certain areas of the country and were VERY CAREFUl about it, we might be able to barely make it on his retirement... and that includes dog food.