Several things here. To start with, the bulk of the deployments around the world are not legitimate, from a military standpoint.
They began with Madeleine Albright, Clinton’s Secretary of State, who just sent military detachments, large and small, hither and yon, sometimes for a short term mission, and others for “decorative” purposes. In either case, they were pretty much abandoned there, never recalled. And once the service obligation of a soldier was up, he left, but was replace, out of inertia.
One such deployment I was familiar with was an Engineer bridging battalion sent to Africa. Their mission was to temporarily bridge a river, using boats to keep the bridge together, so that trucks carrying humanitarian supplies could cross. They were to do this twice in six months. A 2 to 3 day mission. The rest of the time they were idle.
After their mission ended they waited for a recall order to return to Europe. It never came. Finally, after repeated inquiries with no response, their brigade commander ordered their recall. And nobody did anything.
The cost to this battalion was enormous. Their morale was shot, their equipment no longer combat serviceable, and many soldiers had become ill with permanent diseases.
And while this is perhaps an extreme example, there are many deployments that are equally useless and need to end. Some did end during Afghanistan and Iraq, but only because they were searching for personnel who had never rotated through either place, while some personnel had rotated through a dozen times. This was when, for example, the platoon sized unit of Marines guarding the tomb of John Paul Jones at Annapolis were finally replaced with cadets.
As far as military retirement goes, while some will argue about retirement after 20 years, the truth of the matter is that these personnel should definitely be encouraged to move into government service. But instead of getting both retirement and a GS paycheck, they should not be considered as retired until they actually retire, with their retirement reflecting *both* their military and GS service.
So, for example, if they retire again after 10 years of GS service, they should get the same retirement as if they retired after 30 years in the military or GS. So they are not losing a legitimate dime, but they are no longer double dipping.
That is your opinion, and for every anectodal story someone adds like yours, there are many others of where the US military is and has been doing a tremendous deal of "good" in the world. That peace and stability translates into national and global economic well being, as well as alleviating human suffering. We can argue whether or not that is in our interest on a case-by-case business, but what the military does is "not legitimate" because you declare it so.
As far as military retirement goes, while some will argue about retirement after 20 years, the truth of the matter is that these personnel should definitely be encouraged to move into government service. But instead of getting both retirement and a GS paycheck, they should not be considered as retired until they actually retire, with their retirement reflecting *both* their military and GS service.
Secretary Hagel (perhaps the worst SECDEF in many decades) wants the same thing. It will probably happen, but I completely disagree with you. Less than 1% of the current US population wears the uniform of their nation and sacrifices in blood and deprivation to serve. Why we are singling out these folks and attempting to punish them fore serving 20-25 in the military, and then attempting to make them second class citizens if they take another job is nothing but pettiness. We have massive debt and deficits because of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and 70+ unearned entitlement programs, not because a retired Army E-6 making $24,000 in a well deserved military retirement takes a Federal job.