American Sacred Cow #1 - Military Pay

http://www.goarmy.com/benefits/money/basic-pay-active-duty-soldiers.html

Hardly looks like the lap of luxury to me. You couldn't pay me enough to do what our troops do, never knowing where you step is an IED to blow off your legs or blind you or cause you to go deaf or kill you. Never knowing who is around the next corner or on the next roof top to open fire. Breathing all that putrid sand getting in your face and all over you, going without basic amenities in the 100+ scorching heat, scratching yourself raw from the sand fleas, trying to build a school or bridge only to have it blown up by those nuts over there, being away from your family and friends, missing the birth of your kid or your children's birthdays and school play and the holidays, not holding your sweetie at night, all for what? All for nations of ingrates and barbarians over there AND over here.

Hey, would any of you who think our military get paid too much go through that for your measly $17k to $33K a year? Well, would you?

And if your rear end ever gets in a jam and you get flooded out of your home or an earthquake hits or some national disaster happens to come your way, you'll be among the first to be calling out for a rescue from our National Guard, too, I just betcha. Please. I'm thoroughly disgusted.

Enjoy your 4th of July slopping down your burgers and hotdogs and whooping it up. I'll be doing the same, but I'll be saying a prayer for our troops and thanking God above for each and every one of them and the sacrifices they are making and have ALL of them made since 1776!!!

God Bless Our Troops!!!

 

And by the way.....it is completely asinine to compare our military with everyday corporate workers and if it was an equal comparison. I have never seen anything so ridiculous.

 

Every paycheck a person in the military receives (except if in a "combat zone" [in which are very few of them now days]) has his/her share of Federal, State and/or local income taxes + FICA taxes automatically deducted, thus I fail to see your implication that most military personnel have a free ride when it comes to his/her pay.

I welcome you to join their ranks if you feel you're over paid and under apprecated. I'm sure there's plenty of slots available for a bubble-enclosed ivory tower pontificator as you seem to be.

 

Our military deserves it far more and has made a sacrifice other have not.

 

I just wonder how many anti-military on the BB have ever even talked to one of our active duty young men and women.

Have you ever bought a soldier lunch?

Have you ever even donated so much as a pair of socks or a candy cane to be sent to our troops overseas?

Have you ever visited a grave on Memorial Day or attended a Memorial Day service?

Have you ever touched a flag draped coffin?

Or stood by the grave side with military honors and seen that flag solemnly placed in the arms of a grieving mother or spouse?

Do you have anybody in your family who has ever served or is serving now?

Have you ever donated one thin dime to help our wounded warriers?

Check out these links and some of the videos on there - you may get an attitude adjustment.

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

http://fisherhouse.org/

Pizza 4 Patriots: http://nilescustomguitars.com/

 

All I know is that my life is not in constant danger, I do not have to carry a weapon or have to take someone's life to survive and there is American soil under my feet. Also, there are plenty of homeless vets here that we have not taken care of......

 

That knife cuts both ways.

 

You got that right!

 

American Sacred Cow.......

When I read that far, I thought this must have to do with Elsie.

 

Lee Greenwood put it like this:

If tomorrow all the things were gone I'd worked for all by life. And I had to start again with just my children and my wife...

That I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the ones who died who gave that right to me....

Get all the lyrics at "God bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood.

The constitution is still worth defending--whatever the cost. Going light on the military in a nuclear age is just plain suicidal. We still need a big stick and those who know how to use it.

Freedom is not free.

Yep, there are many of us still out there, ready to lock and load, whether we get paid or not.

Happy Independence Day.

Bro. James

 

:thumbsup::thumbsup: "Hey, y'all.....I'm a-fixing tah keep this har powder of mine dry 'ifins any 'dem thar fellers reckons on a-com'in a-nears me!!....How 'bout y'all?...... Y'all wit' me on this 'n??"

 

I have no issues with the amount I am getting paid right now. My base pay (pay before benefits and bonuses for being in combat) is right around $30,000/yr. That will be across the board for anyone my rank/time.

Now, since I live in Hawaii, I get a higher housing allowance than most. It's roughly $24,000/yr. Most places it's right around $12,000/yr. But, since I live on post, I don't see a penny of that. I just get to live in a house that they assign me for free. But we'll count it anyway, since I look at it as a fair trade.

Again, since I live in Hawaii, I get a "Cost Of Living Allowance", or COLA. It's about $8,000/yr.

So, since I live in Hawaii, my pay (without combat benefits or health insurance) is around $60,000/yr. If I lived anywhere else, it would drop to about $45,000/yr.

Now, let's talk about combat bonuses. I get the following:

Hostile Fire Pay/Imminent Danger Pay: $225/mo
Family Separation Allowance: $250/mo

Now, those numbers sound pretty good. But think about it this way; if a person were to ask you, "Hey, I need you to spend a month away from your family. You might get to talk to them, and you might not. I'll give you $250." Would you do it?

Now, let's talk about hours:

My typical day as an NCO starts with megetting my soldiers' rooms at 0530 for an inspection. Then it's off to PT at 0630. We get done foughly 0800, and have an hour break until we report for work at 0900. Lunch is scheduled from 1130-1300, but typically ends up being about an hour. The end of the day is scheduled to be 1700. But I am in a combat company, and so it normally isn't any earlier than 1800. Sometimes (about once a week) we even stay past 2000.

So, we're looking at roughly 50+ hours a week for $45,000-$60,000/yr.

Now let's look at a deployment. While deployed, I'll get an extra $5700/yr.

First off, you get no weekends. It's work 7 days a week. Second, you don't have "personal time". I try to get my guys as much time off as possible. But even now, on the 4th, while typing this response up, my Squad Leader has come in here four times giving me tasks to do, and I had to stop this to get them done.

Now, I consider myself to have it easy out here. I live in an actual building while not on missions. I have internet access so that I can contact my family. But others don't have it this easy, and I don't while on mission.

Typically, our mission schedule was 1 week out, 1 week back. While on mission, if we're lucky, we can stage in a patrol base, so that we can take our gear off and sleep outside the trucks. If we're not that lucky, we have to keep a 24/7 two man guard in the guns of our trucks, and we have to sleep sitting in our trucks. During the day, it's driving the trucks along at the racing speed of 4Km/hr. No, that's not a typo, that 4Km/hr. We are route clearance looking for IEDs and mines to clear the way for others behind us.

As a team leader, I play the role of soldier, mentor, counselor, career advisor, teacher, and leader in combat. The bond of a soldier and a team leader is a unique one. It has to foster a trust like no other relationship.

I said all that to say that I don't think I am getting overpaid. I do not complain, though. I don't think I need more money, as I am making enough to take care of my family and put some aside for the future. But overpaid? Far from it.

I do take some issue with comparing a grocery store dept manager with a member of the military though. Not in job importance, or even pay. If they get paid more than me, oh well. But to compare the job is ludicrous. I've worked in a grocery store. I've been a manager at a couple different restaurants. It's apples and oranges with the military.

 

Something that Woody left out, that several of us who have been prior military have had as part of their duties/responsibilities: Woody also has to work the convoy request, identifying personnel and routes. In other words, he assigns who goes out on the road, possibly to never come back.

It's an awesome responsibility to send someone out, knowing that you're possibly sending them out to their death. Don't know about Woody, but I never gave it a second thought as to myself; I know where I'm going when God determines it's my time to come home to Him. But to send others out, knowing they have families, and that some--sometimes most--of them don't have that same assurance...well, someone tell me how we put a pricetag on that.

And then tell me which civilian jobs we're comparing the military to that can make the same claim.

 

It appears...by many of the comments on here that few bothered to read the article as per standard procedure.

The same way you put a pricetag on any job...find out the least amount that will be accepted to convince the necessary numbers of personnel to enlist and/or reenlist, and offer that amount.

One of the main problems is that there simply is often no correlation whatsoever between certain jobs and in certain branches of the military, and all personnel are paid the same. A pencil-pusher in Arizona makes (outside of hazardous-duty pay or deployment pay) the same amount as anyone in ANY branch of the same pay-grade. That is problematic IMO. It will never be an issue of "economics" really. Those who do it, do it because they want to do it.

Truth be told...at least when I was in the military....I did not think I was underpaid at all. I was in a USMC infantry company and often...we didn't really do much, (and did INDEED take advantage of the ridiculous 2 hour lunch breaks) and anyone who wishes to convince you otherwise is feeding you a line. But on the other hand, sometimes, we would be 24/7 in a dangerous area or war zone and we were worth FAR MORE than our paycheck, you couldn't have paid us what we were "worth"....Other times we were doing a "booze-cruise" in the middle of the Mediterranean accomplishing...well....very little. It isn't about pay really, and there is no way to say how much the job is "worth". That being said...the amount we are paying our military personnel has sky-rocketed in the last few years, this is not a bad thing...but it is becoming something of a "sacred cow".

I think the staff-sergeant in the piece sums it up well:

 

That's what I thought when I was a joe. "Man, we basically sit around all day and do nothing!" It seemed like on non-training days we were just sitting around. Then I became an NCO, and in an engineer company in the rear, a team leader has about 7-8 joes. And they keep me busy, 100% of the time. There's more paperwork, as you have to worry about all of your joes' stuff. Not only that, you become part of planning, and preparation for training, instead of just attending training.

But, I did some Math: the military would have to give someone who deployed for 12 months a whole 2.5 years of three day weekends to make up for weekends and one major holiday per month while deployed. And that's taking into account your 15 days of R&R.

 

I can certainly relate to at least some of what some of the previous posters are trying to tell folks. Granted, as an 21 YO aircraft electrician working on RF-4C tactical reconnaisance fighter-bombers, I didn't have to face the rigors of front-line combat.

OTOH, I still fondly recall the glory days of me often having to pull 14-16 hr shifts single-handedly having to figure out what was wrong with various electrical systems on those aircraft. I spent many a night in the cold, rainy nights of the west-central German winters of 1967-69 trying to access various equipment (&, to this very day I still am not convinced that those McDonnell engineers spent weeks determining what little parts would fail the most frequently...and then build the entire aircraft around them!!).

All this while the fellow who roomed with me spent his leisurely time in a comfortable, climate-controlled office w/ a guaranteed M-F 7am-4pm shift & weekends off. Both of us got exactly the same pay!!

Now, I'm not wanting to start a pity party for me---I pretty much knew what I'd "signed up for"---just pointing out a few glaring inconsistencies that existed in the military---inconsistentcies that I doubt that very few of some of the armchair generals here on BB would put up w/ for very long.

Go ahead & pompously point out some of the fine points of your rather dubiously contrived theories. It's one thing to pontificate from your bubble-enclosed ivory towers wherein you've nailed down all of your many detailed niceities of how things ought to be......But, before you demean the service of a few of us "poor boys" who willingly gave up some of the best years of our lives to serve in the military.....why not walk a few miles in our boots?

I'm sure there's a position open that your local recruiter would be more than happy for you to fill.

Check it out, why don't you?

(Not holding my breath on you actually take me up on this though.) :smilewinkgrin:
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OK....'nuff said....Just wanted to give you some food for thought while some of you spend this July 4th grillin' out w/ family & friends.

Have a good'un!!!

ktn4eg now signing out.

 

I'll buy this. It can also demonstrate that there often is glaring inconsistency between military personell in various pay-grades. I can imagine that NCO status, such as being a platoon-sergeant in ANY combat-arms related field, such as engineering, is much harder than the status of being....say....an E-6 in an Admin. office in Colorado. I was an NCO for a while, but there were too many of us at the time in our unit so things changed for us rather little.

You are also correct about the status of personnel on deployment. They make some more money, but not NEAR what it would be worth. That's why they call it the...SERVICE :thumbs: