Pentagon: Troops Overpaid

[CA renter]

[quote=poorgradstudent]

The areas they might be able to cut costs would be hazard pay and civilian contractors. I know of plenty of cases where someone leaves the military and basically gets rehired to do the same job as a contractor for way more money. But military contracts tend to be very political things with a lot of pork involved. Can you imagine a San Diego representative arguing that we need to scale back military spending?

[/quote]

I was thinking trying to reconcile this with the claim in the linked WaPo article:

Through nine years of war, service members have seen a healthy rise in pay and benefits, leaving most of them better compensated than their peers in the private sector.
————–

To whom are they referring when they say service members are compensated more than their private sector counterparts? In every case I know (a few) where an ex-service member went back as a private contractor, they were paid FAR, FAR more in the private sector than when they were in the public sector.

This is total BS. Those service members deserve every penny and every benefit they’ve been promised. If anybody deserves to be paid well, they are at the top of the list, IMHO.

[CA renter]

[quote=SD Realtor]I see it different. I have a few friends who have served and been called up. One of the tenants in a rental I have has served as well. I saw first hand the stress that the entire family had to endure during his deployments. Not cool at all. Makes localized public service jobs look like a joke. Makes union jobs look even sillier.[/quote]

Yep. Just today, I was with someone whose husband deployed last week for seven months in Iraq. The family is a mess. I have no idea how they do it. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.
————

That being said, I think you’re not giving enough credit to “local union members” (first responders) who also regularly risk their lives and their health in order to serve the public.

[CA renter]

[quote=SD Realtor]I see it different. I have a few friends who have served and been called up. One of the tenants in a rental I have has served as well. I saw first hand the stress that the entire family had to endure during his deployments. Not cool at all. Makes localized public service jobs look like a joke. Makes union jobs look even sillier.[/quote]

Yep. Just today, I was with someone whose husband deployed last week for seven months in Iraq. The family is a mess. I have no idea how they do it. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.
————

That being said, I think you’re not giving enough credit to “local union members” (first responders) who also regularly risk their lives and their health in order to serve the public.

[CA renter]

[quote=SD Realtor]I see it different. I have a few friends who have served and been called up. One of the tenants in a rental I have has served as well. I saw first hand the stress that the entire family had to endure during his deployments. Not cool at all. Makes localized public service jobs look like a joke. Makes union jobs look even sillier.[/quote]

Yep. Just today, I was with someone whose husband deployed last week for seven months in Iraq. The family is a mess. I have no idea how they do it. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.
————

That being said, I think you’re not giving enough credit to “local union members” (first responders) who also regularly risk their lives and their health in order to serve the public.

[CA renter]

[quote=SD Realtor]I see it different. I have a few friends who have served and been called up. One of the tenants in a rental I have has served as well. I saw first hand the stress that the entire family had to endure during his deployments. Not cool at all. Makes localized public service jobs look like a joke. Makes union jobs look even sillier.[/quote]

Yep. Just today, I was with someone whose husband deployed last week for seven months in Iraq. The family is a mess. I have no idea how they do it. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.
————

That being said, I think you’re not giving enough credit to “local union members” (first responders) who also regularly risk their lives and their health in order to serve the public.

[CA renter]

[quote=SD Realtor]I see it different. I have a few friends who have served and been called up. One of the tenants in a rental I have has served as well. I saw first hand the stress that the entire family had to endure during his deployments. Not cool at all. Makes localized public service jobs look like a joke. Makes union jobs look even sillier.[/quote]

Yep. Just today, I was with someone whose husband deployed last week for seven months in Iraq. The family is a mess. I have no idea how they do it. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.
————

That being said, I think you’re not giving enough credit to “local union members” (first responders) who also regularly risk their lives and their health in order to serve the public.

[Eugene]

[quote=briansd1]
I know a guy who joined to go fight in Iraq because he wanted to sponsor his mother who is old and sick.
[/quote]

And then what? Noncitizen immigrants are barred from all public benefits, specifically Medicare. If you’re ineligible for Medicare, the United States is not a very good place to be old and sick.

Unless he wanted to drive his mother to TJ for routine checkups, of course.

[Eugene]

[quote=briansd1]
I know a guy who joined to go fight in Iraq because he wanted to sponsor his mother who is old and sick.
[/quote]

And then what? Noncitizen immigrants are barred from all public benefits, specifically Medicare. If you’re ineligible for Medicare, the United States is not a very good place to be old and sick.

Unless he wanted to drive his mother to TJ for routine checkups, of course.

[Eugene]

[quote=briansd1]
I know a guy who joined to go fight in Iraq because he wanted to sponsor his mother who is old and sick.
[/quote]

And then what? Noncitizen immigrants are barred from all public benefits, specifically Medicare. If you’re ineligible for Medicare, the United States is not a very good place to be old and sick.

Unless he wanted to drive his mother to TJ for routine checkups, of course.

[Eugene]

[quote=briansd1]
I know a guy who joined to go fight in Iraq because he wanted to sponsor his mother who is old and sick.
[/quote]

And then what? Noncitizen immigrants are barred from all public benefits, specifically Medicare. If you’re ineligible for Medicare, the United States is not a very good place to be old and sick.

Unless he wanted to drive his mother to TJ for routine checkups, of course.

[Eugene]

[quote=briansd1]
I know a guy who joined to go fight in Iraq because he wanted to sponsor his mother who is old and sick.
[/quote]

And then what? Noncitizen immigrants are barred from all public benefits, specifically Medicare. If you’re ineligible for Medicare, the United States is not a very good place to be old and sick.

Unless he wanted to drive his mother to TJ for routine checkups, of course.

[Ricechex]

The military are hardly overpaid, considering their duties. Their operational schedules and deployments are even more frequent than they were 5 years ago. They come back from a 6-8 month deployment, and in just 6 weeks are back to frequent underways. In less than a year, many of them are back on another deployment. It is very hard on the families. Sometimes they miss the births of their children. Imagine missing 6 months of your one year old’s development?

Sometimes, the kids don’t even know them when they return. Sometimes they return to find their wives have been cheating, moved out, bought cars/run up the bills…not saying this couldn’t happen if they were home, but being across the world with sporadic email and minimal phone calls, makes it much harder for them to know what is going on.

Many of these guys/ladies work very hard, and if there are unresolvable problems, they are administratively separated.

[Ricechex]

The military are hardly overpaid, considering their duties. Their operational schedules and deployments are even more frequent than they were 5 years ago. They come back from a 6-8 month deployment, and in just 6 weeks are back to frequent underways. In less than a year, many of them are back on another deployment. It is very hard on the families. Sometimes they miss the births of their children. Imagine missing 6 months of your one year old’s development?

Sometimes, the kids don’t even know them when they return. Sometimes they return to find their wives have been cheating, moved out, bought cars/run up the bills…not saying this couldn’t happen if they were home, but being across the world with sporadic email and minimal phone calls, makes it much harder for them to know what is going on.

Many of these guys/ladies work very hard, and if there are unresolvable problems, they are administratively separated.

[Ricechex]

The military are hardly overpaid, considering their duties. Their operational schedules and deployments are even more frequent than they were 5 years ago. They come back from a 6-8 month deployment, and in just 6 weeks are back to frequent underways. In less than a year, many of them are back on another deployment. It is very hard on the families. Sometimes they miss the births of their children. Imagine missing 6 months of your one year old’s development?

Sometimes, the kids don’t even know them when they return. Sometimes they return to find their wives have been cheating, moved out, bought cars/run up the bills…not saying this couldn’t happen if they were home, but being across the world with sporadic email and minimal phone calls, makes it much harder for them to know what is going on.

Many of these guys/ladies work very hard, and if there are unresolvable problems, they are administratively separated.

[Ricechex]

The military are hardly overpaid, considering their duties. Their operational schedules and deployments are even more frequent than they were 5 years ago. They come back from a 6-8 month deployment, and in just 6 weeks are back to frequent underways. In less than a year, many of them are back on another deployment. It is very hard on the families. Sometimes they miss the births of their children. Imagine missing 6 months of your one year old’s development?

Sometimes, the kids don’t even know them when they return. Sometimes they return to find their wives have been cheating, moved out, bought cars/run up the bills…not saying this couldn’t happen if they were home, but being across the world with sporadic email and minimal phone calls, makes it much harder for them to know what is going on.

Many of these guys/ladies work very hard, and if there are unresolvable problems, they are administratively separated.

[Author]

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