[Cringing Negativism Network]

America only has so many dollars.

We send hundreds of billions of those to China.

Sorry US Service People, China has your money.

How’s that “free trade” thing working out?...

[FreeAtlanta]

bastards. In time of crisis, the military is the only people who should be paid.

Cut Obeelzebub’s pay check, golf outings and money for his and his mooching wife’s vacations. Cut the congressional “fact finding” vacations and their $170,000 plus per year extorting from the tax payers, but don’t touch money going to our troops.

[FlingWingFlyer]

I’ll be happy when this maggot is gone. Gates has done a lot of damage to the military. Of course, that was why he was selected for the job. Meanwhile, Moochelle and Rimshot Biden’s wife are out there sucking up to the military at every turn while their spouses are actually stabbing the service members and their families in the back.

[Norm Lenhart]

Thank you Mr. Gates for handing all the military/family/supporter votes to the candidate that tells you and Obama to go to hell.

If we lose this election with gifts like this, we deserve our fate.

Bail out the middle east/pay china to be nice or pay our servicemen and women...hmmmm tough choice...for a liberal. Not for an American.

I like GW, really, but he really should apologize to America for appointing this moron.

[OldSmaj]

"Well, it's Tommy this and Tommy that..."

There are some here that know what that means.

I'll leave it at that.

[Cheerio]

Been waiting for this shoe to drop.

[RetiredArmy]

Serve longer careers???? Stupid &#^#*@&!!! When I retired, an E6 in the army HAD to retire at 20 years; an E7 at 24; an E8 at 27 and E9 at 30. You had no choice. You had to go up or get out. Even if that person was doing a decent, but not super man job, he was out at what ever year mark by grade. I have known a lot of good people who just were not E7 and up material but did good jobs as E6’s but had to quit at 20. I know some that would have gone till they died, but no, out you go. Top heavy in senior NCOs and bottom heavy in young people. Nope, the stupid stuff the military came up with is going to bite them in the ass again when they start cutting more pay, benefits, etc. As for WORKING aged retirees, big snot. I am 60 years old. I have had six surgeries in my life directly because of military service. I have had three in the past three years. My 60 year old body is now about 75. I can barely get out of bed in the morning, yet I am still considered working age. I retired at 55 because I simply could not do it any more. I worked in a law firm. Sitting all day I could not get out of a chair by the end of the day. My body is beat up like I got run over by an M1 tank. Right Gates. You idiot. Get off your lazy desk butt and come out in the field and see what military service does to our bodies. If I live to be 80, I will spend the last years of my life in a Hover-round because I will not be able to walk or sit up because my hips, back, spine and knees will be GONE!!! Right. Thanks for nothing Gates. Triple the Tricare payout, and cut all the other meager benefits that we have left. Stupid dimocrats. I hate every stinking dimocrat on the planet.

[JoeFromSidney]

It really irks me that they want to save money by cutting pay and benefits of military people who defend the country, yet won't touch welfare, which is paid for just being born.

Col (Ret) USAF

[familyop]

"Specifically he criticized a “one-size-fits-all approach” to basic pay and retirement, suggesting “tiered and targeted” methods could cost less but pay more to service members in 'high demand and dangerous specialties.'"

So those who sleep little and sleep in the dirt might get more than those rough, tough soldiers who sit or work in air conditioned offices? That would be an interesting first.

[Yo-Yo]

suggesting “tiered and targeted” methods could cost less but pay more to service members in “high demand and dangerous specialties.”

Back in my day the military did have this "tiered and targeted" method to compensate members in high demand specialties.

It was called a Selective Reenlistment Bonus.

[Will88]

He implied pay levels overall are set too high as evidenced by the services’ continuous ability to meet recruiting and retention targets, except for the Army and only “during the worst years of Iraq.”

Had to read that more than once to be sure what it said.

A pretty cynical viewpoint for a SECDEF. He doesn't think Americans ever join because they want to serve their country, or because they are attracted all the things that make the military different from civilian. He doesn't think any of them want to "see the world" as many old recruiting slogans used to say?

I've heard Gates called the "consummate bureaucrat", meaning he'll say or do whatever the bosses say, whoever the bosses might be, makes no difference. Sounds like that was pretty accurate.

[hattend]

He implied pay levels overall are set too high as evidenced by the services’ continuous ability to meet recruiting and retention targets, except for the Army and only “during the worst years of Iraq.”

Wow... just wow...

What an asshole.

[Mr Rogers]

I retired with 25.5 years in. By law, as an O-5, I could only have stayed in another 2.5 years. I did a PCA after budget cuts, and ended up spending my last year in a do nothing paperwork job, trying to squeeze an hour of work into an 8 hour day.

I asked to be transferred anywhere in the world, and was told there was no money, so I retired.

The truth is I would have gladly stayed in for 35, if they would just have put me somewhere with something useful to do - but the law required me to leave at 28. That may have made sense in the 50s, but at 53 I’m riding horses, jogging, and on my last PT test in the USAF, only one guy beat me. And he admitted to me afterward that he was going to die before he’d let a 50 year old officer do more push-ups than him or run 1.5 miles faster than him. He beat me by 3 pushups and 15 seconds.

So revising the retirement system makes sense to me. HOWEVER, I am certain they will go about it the wrong way because almost no one in Congress has any idea what the military does or what motivates it.

[Gator113]

Just another step in the destruction of our military, erosion of our national security and the survival of our country.

Fag ‘em up and now ruin ‘em financially.... unforgivable.

13 steps and a short fall is needed for a good many traitors.

[Clintonfatigued]

Robert Gates is one of the worst Cabinet Secretaries ever. I agree that a dollar should buy a dollar worth of defense and that if there's any inefficiency in the military, it should be corrected. But the men and women in uniform earn their pay and benefits in a way few can understand Robert Gates obviously doens't understand or merely doesn't care.

[Don Corleone]

Back to the old $21 a day...once a month... as it was in WWII.

[RoadTest]

Pay the troops what they’re worth (a lot more than they’re getting now), Pay the politicians on the same basis (and that will bring their compensation W-A-A-AY down)!