It's official starting 2018. Newly enlisted troops won't get the traditional 20-yr, all-or-nothing retirement plan. What are your thoughts?

I do not think this was set in place for the few like myself who plan to do 20 plus years of service. This new policy is for those who do 2-8 or 10 and get out with nothing; choose and another path and leave with something. Financial education will be a huge talking point moving forward. I wish when I first enlisted, I knew what I know now about my finances. Now it is up to me to take what I know and teach it to my troops.

I loved my time in service for the most part. As the cold war ended and our large fighting force was being paired down from what the politicos believed would no longer be necessary, I was returning from a 2nd O/S tour of 3 years. My 5 year old daughter had only seen her grandparents a half dozen times, and never for more than 30 days. My wife was awesome and strong enough for the life, but I knew it was hard on her generations long tradition of a close-knit extended family. I had been on the list for E-7 a year, and the Army had just announced planned reductions in my MOS which was already top heavy. My Army training as a 91C30 afforded me to take and pass the National Registry Exam for Registered nurses and I had a national registry certification for Paramedic. I decided to get out and take the girls home. I had enlisted too late for the Vietnam Era GI Bill and got out too early for the new one. Thank god for the awesome training from the U.S. Army academy of Health sciences for my 68 semester hours in nursing and City College of Chicago Fire and EMS courses I took while I was in. A plan like this would have been great for me getting out after 12 years.

Retention will be out the window without the retirement incentive. The services will have to create extended service obligations to offset the cost of training for many job fields. That in turn will be problematic administratively, create less flexibility, and affect morale. Early and admin seps will have a payback attached, lateral moves will become rare, higher cost training will require more screening/pre-reqs, and those job fields will be harder to keep staffed. I imagine there will be a number of highly trained but dissatisfied (for whatever reason) men and women who will remain prisoners with nowhere to go for many years.

National leadership wants to fight "on the cheap". We've already got retention issues in CMF 37; we are bleeding talented captains and sergeants because for a variety of reasons, and I certainly can't see this helping.

On the flip side it means the guys who serve 20 are doing it because their heart is still in it and not simply to cash out their retirement. Not trying to make a blanket statement but I think we all know one of those guys.

SPC David Willis - What you could also end up with (and I fear will greatly outnumber the truly dedicated) are those who know they are incompetent beyond being worth a damn in the civilian world but will hang on-- and keep getting paid AND promoted-- when all those competent, capable, and smart people who can thrive in second careers leave the service after 10-12 years to set themselves up for life in their 40's-60's rather than starting career #2 on the bottom rung at 40 years old when the kids are starting college. The military will no longer have the option of promoting the best... they'll have to promote from who is left. I don't see the result being pretty.

LCDR (Join to see) - That's also a possibility. It will be interesting to see how retention is impacted down the road.

SPC Herold Bush - You still get the regular retirement at the end of 20 years, it's just at 2% of your base pay instead of 2.5%. You can't access the TSP until you are 59 1/2 WITHOUT A TAX PENALTY. You can still access it. You can take a lump sum 25 percent or 50 percent payout in exchange for a similar reduction in monthly retirement payments until full SSA Age, then it goes back to full Retirement again.

TSP means THIS SUCKS PLAN

The new plan as I read it is an automatic 1% for every person will be given by the government into their TSP even if you don't put anything in and the government will then match up to five more percent so if you put in 5 percent the government's contribution to your tsp will be 6 percent for a total of 11%

No mandatory contribution from members. The gov will put in 1% automatically and then a sliding scale percentage based on member contribution that can total up to 5% total from gov for 10% total.

Soooo. I've been in for 8 years and putting into a TSP. To me it seems like they are screwing me over. I don't know much about this but.... I'm not going to keep doing this army thing if I have to pay for my own retirement.