Do you think 20 year retirements are hurting the military?

The key to a highly competent military force is having a core of long serving professionals who provide the leadership and who keep and pass on the institutional knowledge gained with blood. Love of country and patriotism may be reasons why people sign up for military service, but patriotism only keeps you going for so long. In the end, to ask someone to give up their youth and the prime earning time of their life in the service of the nation, you have to offer them an incentive to stay long term. And that incentive has to be competative and worthwhile. Else you are going to lose your best and brightest to the lure of the civilain market.

I don't think they're hurting the military so much as they are hurting the taxpayer. We have a Congress and Senate that have a much, much sweeter deal that is even harder on the taxpayer from an individual retiree perspective. 6 years and retired? And at minimal risk to their life while they send our military off on lengthy deployments and combat? Maybe our Congress should be like the King of Jordan and lead our troops into battle. That would change their perspective.

I think as a matter of principle we need to address Congressional pension plans before addressing military retirement.

The 20 year cliff is an arbitrary number. It could be 18 or 22 or some other arbitrary number. The vested 3 number is also arbitrary.

From the article:

"Twenty years until vesting is four times longer than what is legally allowable in a private sector pension. Why? It is coercive. And it’s not just distorting the behavior of the employees, but the employers as well."

My personal opinion is that each year of service should grant 2.5% retirement of your base pay. You complete 1 year, you get 2.5% of Private Pay. You complete 30 years, you get 75% of Colonel Pay. (Averaged over last 3 years base).

This will completely remove the "incentive" to stay until whatever arbitrary retirement year number. That would smooth out that curve, and fix the "vesting" issue I quoted above.

Now, the trade off to that is... everyone is moved to the Retired Roster. You can be recalled until 30. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but I'd rather recall someone who has been in, and been trained, and give them a refresher, than "draft" someone when we want to surge up.

When we have large scale conflicts, we offer up "activation slots" and people can come back.

Just my 2 cents.

I found this article very interesting, and somewhat a jab at our service members - from a monetary perspective without taking into consideration the sacrifices made to earn the retirement.

At 20 years of service, I had already completed multiple combat deployments as well as operational deployments to Bosnia and even Hungary, not to mention a couple dependent restricted tours to Camp Casey, Korea.....and we are not even counting the other operational and humanitarian support operations...so for my first 20 years of service, the sacrifices made (personally and by my family) was just about 8 years of combat/operational and restricted missions.

I do not think I am special or that my service warrants any special accolades, as a matter of fact, I believe I had it a little easier than those that entered the service after 9/11. I also believe we can look at other areas for our fiscal responsibility, namely how do elected Congressional officials earn a lifetime of retirement benefits after one term?

While there might be a better way to make restitution to our service members at retirement, I believe they've earned every damned bit they are entitled to, I do not believe there is another profession that puts their ass on the line as much as our service members and give as much selfless service and sacrifice as our service members.

my main thing with this 20 year retirement discussion....you may also need to look at the promotion rates and the up/out mindset.
something isnt right about a policy that says I can draw no retirement until 20 years, but yet, if I dont get promoted, I am put out -thus killing the opportunity to make it to 20 years.

in its current state, you can really get burned by the military.

if you get put out of the army, you dont get 20 years, you dont get ANYTHING for time served, and you get put out because we want people with LESS EXPERIENCE, but POTENTIALLY more promise (promotion).

I haven't seen a plan yet that I think would be worth the change, but I show bias, I love the idea of a pension before I'm 42.

I feel that twenty years is perfect because of the amount of damage our bodies take. Very few are making it the full twenty and most are gone after their first contract.

The article and its data are no longer valid. With the implementation of the Blended Retirement System on Jan 1, 2018, things have changed. For more information, see militarypay.defense.gov/blendedretirement

A question I have wondered about (obviously not enough to do my own research...) is, where does the funding for federal retirements come from? I understand that federal employees must pay into their basic benefits plan but after they retire they are paid a retirement pension for the rest of their lives, just as we do. An argument can be made that we also pay our dues, or that our lack of paying monetary dues is offset by the fact that the federal employees TSP contributions are matched by the government while ours do not (except for the airforce). Also our retirement is contingent upon actually serving for at least 20 years.

Why aren’t federal pensions under the same scrutiny that military pensions are? From an article (not peer reviewed, just a quick search for a statistic http://www.skyhidailynews.com/article/20110824/NEWS/110829987) approximately 17% of the military actually retire. I can’t find a consistent percentage of the federal workforce (excluding military), but one I did find said that on average 3.5% of the federal workforce retires each year, and that by 2017 31% of the federal workforce (2x the size of the military) will be eligible for retirement.

So far most of the searches I make on Google regarding federal retirement point to the need for military retirement reform, I haven’t found any that look at federal retirement reform. Maybe a better answer for the military’s shortfall of funds would be to make the federal retirement funding source our retirement funding source.

**edited for spacing**

So this is an interesting question to field. Do 20 year retirements hurt the military? I don't believe so. There are a number of reasons that people retire at 20 years: 1) retirement eligible 2) start a new career 3) Political Correct BS 4) body is broken and would not be a well oiled machine for another 10 years....the list goes on

Part of the problem is the all or nothing retirement plan that STARTS at 20 years. I am set to retire in less then 1 year. Do "I" want a change? No. Not at this point. Do I think it could change? Yes...but needs to be done smartly.

Cliff vesting at 20 years with the type of lifestyle that the military leads is hard core....some make it, other do not. IF they want to change things, they will need to implement a graduated vesting for "something" after fewer years...and maybe delayed payment (at less then 20 or 25 or 30 years). TSP will require MUCH more training/input (I never did any TSP as I didn't know enough about it....wish I would have!).

For many military that make it to the full 20+ years active, I think they should start receiving retirement right away due to the potential for less employability due to being physically broken after a 20+ year career. It would be delayed and reduced payment based on years done for anyone that gets out at 5+ and less then 20..... This is just my thought.