>>I don’t know about anybody else, but there’s no way I would have stayed in 20 if the retirement system didn’t exist.
Unbelievable! Twenty years in the military is harder than 40 years in most careers. You’d think that the Pentagon would know that! I wonder if, as part of the “corporate retirement” plan, they’ll also start paying overtime for all hours worked over 40 in a week? If they did that, the military wouldn’t need a retirement plan!
This is just another part of the conversion to a Soviet-style economy and way of life. In this case, they will create a military full of professional officers and conscript enlisted.
True, but that's not the real issue. Being in the military, particularly as an enlisted, is a form of voluntary servitude. When you are signed on, you're signed on.
In any civilian job (to my knowledge), if you have a situation that you do not want to deal with (idiot boss, immoral policies, being ordered to do dangerous tasks, family problems, not being paid on time, etc.), you can say "f-u" and walk. Sure, your pay stops. Sure, you might get blackballed. But you have the option to do that.
In the military, if you do that, you are called a "deserter" and a "coward." You can get court martialed for that. If you leave, you will not only have your work looking for you, in order to arrest you, but you'll also get your picture in the post office and have the full weight of the federal government with the full cooperation of the state governments and, possibly, friendly foreign governments looking for you.
And that is the way it should be.
But that right there is the biggest difference between any civilian job and the military. And that right there is the reason, IMHO, that the retirement system should be retained.