Posted on 04/10/2014 12:22:17 PM PDT by YoungAmericanConservative1989
Can you believe this guy? Who is he representing, the president of the troops he is supposed to stand up for? Last time I checked our Marines are plenty disciplined and far from entitled.
http://americanmilitarynews.com/2014/04/top-enlisted-leader-marine-corps-says-lower-pay-marines-will-raise-discipline/
Thanks for your service, FRiend. Feel free to project.
I was a 2nd Lt from 76 to 78 and although I made a little more (prior enlisted over 4) it was enough to be comfortable with a wife and new child. The other 2Lts in my squadron were also comfortable, not rich, but comfortable. $42K today is at best middle-class.
Would you have wanted to take a pay cut back then? Would that have made up for all of the training time and long hours? I was putting in 70 hrs a week on the average during that time and the redeeming aspect of it all was that my family was safe and not on food stamps.
Anyone out there who thinks that cutting the pay of the Marines or any of the services is acceptable and will be welcomed is full of crap. You don’t get full faith and allegiance for next to nothing and ignoring the fact that the cost of just living is being pushed out of reach by this National Socialist Democrat dictator. This is not WWII and even then at $50 a month, it was as much as many were making a month before being drafted.
If he really said this, the place to start would be to make the pay for the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps a minimum wage job, and that means based on a forty hour week and make sure he adheres to forty hours. They can even make it the new federal minimum wage, whatever that is.
That would save some money in the DOD.
For far too long guys in these type of positions are appointed because of their political prowess and ability to be professional boot lickers and yes men.
I volunteered at the end of 1971 after beating the draft, the pay was still very low, but improved.
A married PFC with kids and 3 years in service, and collecting combat pay, is going to be making a sizable income and benefits package today.
It is one reason that single moms like to enlist, it is quite a career today.
Like you, I was putting in at least 70 hours a week, more if you include Staff Duty Officer once or twice during the week, and every other weekend.
And who could forget those alerts? Being in an Army unit on an AF Base offered so many wonderful opportunities! On the Army side, we had Group, 32nd AADCOM, and USAREUR alerts, while on the AF side we participated in the USAFE and NATO alerts. Cut my pay? Oh hell yes! I had so much free time on my hands! When I got to Germany, I was 30 days in the hole on annual leave. Three years later, I was 58 days to the good.
I loved my time in Germany, and the Army, but any notion of a pay CUT is the fastest way I know to destroy morale.
Thanks for your service, too.
My pay was about $90 something for just about two years. The big raise didn’t come until I passed that.
When I mustered out in 76, my base pay was about $600/month as an E-5. My off base housing in England ate up over 1/3 of that right off the bat. Rates and utilities nearly got another third. The car, insurance and food got the rest.
There was a potato shortage when we were there and they got really expensive. My wife used to go out with the baby and pram for a stroll and she followed the tractor pulled potato carts going through town cobblestone streets because she just KNEW some of them potatoes would fall off. That actually saved us a good bit of money....that and 25 cent packs of macaroni and cheese and cheap hot dogs. That last year there was the worst of all eight years.
For a single private with zero years experience, the equivalent civilian pay comes to $46,660.56/year for my zip code.
I'm stunned.
Why did I waste time not learning to shoot people? I'd have been making more money, having more fun, and looking forward to a pension in my golden years.
Screw doing something productive. Putting holes in other people pays better.
You can throw out clothes as a factor. You pay for those in part out of your base pay in boot camp and other than speciality clothing it is a one time issue; officers buy their own.
Food, if you are in the barracks is not usually paid in kind but the dollar amount if on separate rats will cover very basic needs. Same applies to a family. Shopping for food at the commissary (if one is nearby) will save up to 20% if you are a prudent shopper.
Housing is not paid if you live in the barracks (as many Marines will) and the quality of barracks varies widely depending on location. Many are very nice although usually shared with at least one other, basically an efficiency apt. When I was living in the barracks in the Corps it was mostly open bay with your platoon, a few had rooms with 2-3 to the room. Lower enlisted housing was limited and rather shabby. Today the housing is better but it again depends on location. In many cases the housing available is substandard meaning they don’t meet minimum requirements and are not fully up to the value of the BAH rate. A single E-1 stationed at Offutt AFB and authorized to live off base will receive $783 a month to rent/buy and if married will receive $1041 to cover rent, utilities, etc. It varies by location and in high cost areas it is nowhere near enough.
Remember too, military pay is manipulated by congress so that (you are told) you might receive less pay than your civilian counterparts but that these other bennies will make up for it. It didn’t come close back in the old days and it usually doesn’t cover everything today. At best your overall compensation might get close to a civilian counterpart but usually doesn’t reach or surpass it.
Also, contrary to the old myth that still goes around; military members do pay taxes.
Not a Marine.
There is enough to throw this Commandant overboard without this.
“Military pay, allowances, and health care costs have risen more than 90 percent since 2001, while the size of the active duty force has grown by less than 3 percent in that same time, according to the Council on Foreign Relations . Today the average total cost per sailor, Marine, soldier, or airman is nearly $115,000 compared with $58,000 in 2001, according to a study from the Center for American Progress. The military retirement system is projected to have an unfunded liability of $2.7 trillion by 2034, according to a Defense Business Board report.
Yes, that was trillion—with a ‘T.’”
http://news.usni.org/2013/07/10/opinion-military-pay-and-benefits-unsustainable
Wow! Germany, that would have been nice. My younger brother did an enlisted tour there and again as an officer, while he wasn’t stationed in Florida (twice) and New Mexico (twice). My first USMC station was Barstow, a woman behind every tree although I met my wife (a woman Marine) there, and my first AF assignment was Minot (why not minot? Freezing’s the reason). I know the alert routine and along with the training and other duties the 70 hour weeks became routine.
If you remember, in 1978 congress got into a deadlock over the budget and they officially caused the military pay to be ceased. It didn’t last long because the units supporting congressional travel and medical care for congressmen and their families staged an unofficial slowdown or shutdown that kept them from boondogling and kept their wives from getting facelifts. They quickly came to an agreement on the budget. That incident also generated a lot of serious talk about unionizing the military which would be a disaster.
A paycut would cause a plunge in morale and a steep rise in the levels of stress which would screw discipline.
Thank you also for your service.
Accept homosexuality, transgenders, follow ROE that will get you maimed or killed, your commander in chief routinely trades terrorist back to countries that immediately release them back to the battlefield; heaven help you if you have a tattoo, mustache or any sign of manliness now...Chaplins can't pray.
Terrorist incidents are categorized as workplace accidents
Defense Secretary wants to retroactively cut your promised pay and benefits.
Perhaps it's time to let the 99% that say they support the military but have never served, defend themselves.
We need to start by substantially gutting pay for Congress and then I will know we are serious.
Military service isn't productive? Sure you are on the right site? BTW, it is 18K for my zip. Yours is less as well, forget the BHA and BAS. Unless you live in a squad bay now and eat that good military chow equivalent..
At the risk of getting attacked by those who won't think ...
No, military service is not productive. Nor are intelligence gathering, (legitimate) law enforcement and fire fighting. These things are PROTECTIVE. A functioning society must have people doing both PRODUCTIVE work (farming, mining, manufacturing, transporting) and PROTECTIVE work (see above) in order to survive. They are different, but necessary.
Military service isn't productive. It's a cost. That doesn't mean it isn't necessary.
But some of these numbers I'm seeing now concerning a career in the military remind me of the numbers I've seen for other government jobs. And they all cry about how poor they are and how little government work pays. It's all BS now. It may have been true 30 years ago, but not now.
There are many ways to serve the country -- growing food, mining coal, developing new technology. They all contribute to the strength of a nation.
If military pay is going to reach parity with these other jobs, then there's nothing more special about military service (or any other government service) than is special about other forms of work.
If they are necessary for a society to survive, then their productivity is manifested by the society's survival. Their product is security. Because of the state of the world, they are necessary as you pointed out. Without it, the PRODUCTIVE work couldn't happen, lest we end up plowing for those who didn't beat their swords into plowshares. It is a cost to the society, but it allows it to live and grow.
I agree that serving is a choice but if you think Service members are overpaid that tells me you never served or served in some cush location and not for 20 years.
None of which call upon the doer to deploy, endure the separation from the family, or to have somebody actively trying to kill you. That some folks do that kind of work is laudable. It is productive, it provides security, it frees the others to do other work. It isn't like most gov't jobs. It is the only gov't service where the promises made can be reneged upon at the convenience of the people provided the service of security.
If military pay is going to reach parity with these other jobs, then there's nothing more special about military service
There isn't any parity with other jobs, because there is little other work that has the same claims on one's life.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.