Assume two eighteen year-olds are compared, one joins the military and one doesn’t. It would depend on the branch and job obviously, a marine special forces combat soldier loses more than an air force mechanic.
What effect does the physical and psychological stress of the military have on life expectancy? Tons of physical labor, combat, environmental toxins, ptsd, etc must all take a toll.
On the other hand, the physical conditioning and free medical care may have added years to his life.
And based on that I think it’s either a wash or a net positive to be in the military if the former soldier maintains at least some level of physical fitness for a large portion of his life.
On the other hand I have seen former servicemen gain a lot of weight once they leave the service, my father for instance.
And if they retire from the service the provision of paychecks and medical care for the rest of their life can do wonders for stress reduction. To be sure it isn’t a rich life, especially if they barely scraped the minimum promotions to last 20 years, but it does mean they’ve got a leg up on whatever post-service income they do need.
I know several retired officers who haven’t worked since age 42 and are living a very mellow life indeed. If they can avoid obesity & accident they’ll coast into their 90s.
Two minor points.
First - the health care isn’t free for the rest of your life. Not expensive, but not free either.
Second - No offense, but do you really know
Best, best, best case is $55k gross per year. You still have medical, mortgage, taxes, normal living expenses. Hard to see that is a care free lifestyle. And most aren’t getting near that. That’s a very, very small minority after 20.
Yeah, mine is about $24,000 a year (net), and I’ve been retired for 25 years. And my ex gets half of it. Very few ‘retired’ military can actually retire. I had to work another 20 years in order to put enough away to actually retire.
Two married former Lt Cols do very nicely together. The income from the houses they kept at each base they lived at which are still rented to other service members is just icing on the cake. They bought a last house is a low cost of living area near another base (can you say BX, commissary, & hospital?) and are coasting out.
I have no doubt they could develop expensive hobbies & bankrupt themselves. But it’d take diligent work to get there.
And notice my main point was that retirees have a cashflow leg up over other 40- or 50-somethings looking for a job. I never meant to suggest that a retired E-6 with an ex-spouse could sleep on the beach all day. He/she can have groceries, or a big hunk of rent / mortgage covered though.
$55K/year is more than double the median personal income. As long as you aren’t trying to live in Manhattan you can live perfectly well on that amount. It took me seven years of postsecondary education to make more than that.
Perhaps we differ on what the term “very mellow life indeed” means.
More than that, I take exception to the belief that those that retire from the military all retire at 40-42, and never have a financial care in the world. We’ve made or decisions, and for good or bad lie in the bed we’ve made. But this belief that many have that we somehow don’t pay taxes (wrong) have free health care for life (wrong) and can retire and never work again at age 40 (wrong), and never worried about losing or jobs (wrong) irritate me on occasion.
That belief only exists in your head. LSLGuy said he knew several people who had managed it. He never said or implied that all or even most military officers do.
I will say, as a non-military-person, that I was very surprised to discover how little military service does for the job prospects of most enlisted people. To hear recruiting ads tell it, every employer in the civilian world is slavering at the prospect of ex-military job candidates, and a friend of mine who served in Afghanistan in a Navy intelligence detachment had three $100K-plus offers the day he received his discharge. Obviously, the latter was never going to be the rule but I was definitely surprised it was a huge exception.
He said “I know several retired officers who haven’t worked since age 42 and are living a very mellow life indeed. If they can avoid obesity & accident they’ll coast into their 90s.”
Made it seem to me that there are a fair amount of folks retiring at 42, never to work another day in their lives and are living without a financial care for another 50 years. This statement existed external to my head.
Officers too. I have “several” friends that are convinced their 7-8 years in the Navy have permanently put them 7-8 years behind in their earning potential for years to come. And some of my retired friends say that they just aren’t all that hirable in their mid-40s when they get out and have to find their second job. As I said up thread, we’ve all live the lives we chosen, but I believe the military retirement life isn’t as rosy as portrayed.
The question is fairly GQ answerable.
Best likely control comparison is reservist retiree to active duty retirees to general population numbers:
Now that is for those who have reached 60. Every death before then of course would have a disproportionate impact on life expectancy numbers. In that regard the higher suicide rate among veterans is noteworthy: about 75 to 80% higher among male veterans and possibly a bigger percent (but less absolute number) among female veterans compared to the general American population.
Viet Nam vets in particular seemed to have an increase in deaths at younger ages (with five years of discharge from active duty) due to motor vehicle accidents, suicide, homicide, and accidental poisonings. The excess deaths due to those causes persisted in longer term follow ups as well.
Unclear how the Gulf War group will do on those metrics in comparison.
The stress on your body varies greatly depending on your job. A supply clerk isn’t going to have the same level of stress as a tanker or infantry.
There was a meme going around recently. “Pain is weakness leaving your body. Unless you’re a paratrooper then it’s probably arthritis.”
This is interesting - the case is made that the excess mortality of veterans who served in WW2 and the Korean war was more attributable to free cigarettes than any other factors.
An article about the impact on quality of life measures at different points if you are interested.
Hard to control for confounders I think.
When I was in High School, ROTC was mandatory for all male students. Our sergeant/instructor mentioned that a career military man, after retirement, has an average life expectancy of four (4) more years.
What kind of civilian world skills do you learn as an infrantryman or Tank driver? Law Enforcement is one area where some skills might transfer (I suspect former MP’s would have a better time).
Work in the Engineers, Signals, IT might lead to better prospects.
Officers often have degrees and more to the point, connections, which can lead to better jobs on civie street.
Depends on what you were doing in the military. Somebody who spent six years as a rifleman has few translatable skills, other than being able to follow orders. I was a Construction Electrician in the Navy, and through a career supervised hundreds of people, rising to the project management level. I was employed from the minute I got out after 23 years until I retired for good. I may have lost earnings by staying in so long, but then I wouldn’t have learned the leadership and management skills if I’d gotten out early on. When I got out, I had about $25,000 in the bank and no debt, an unusual situation for a military enlisted man. When I retired for good 20 years later, I had over a million in money and assets.
Well, you learn to drive as a tank driver. Driving a school bus requires almost no qualifications in most US states, so you’d think that would be a job tank drivers could fill. But the point is that the US military services are constantly claiming that military service, all by itself, will make you a must-hire job candidate afterwards. Or at least they imply it. In truth they may simply be alluding to the fact that you can get a mostly-free education and some on-the-job training.
There are some specific cases that are odd, though. Army medics don’t qualify for any medical jobs in most states. They can’t even work as paramedics, even though they receive essentially the same training as most states require.
Army medics recieve EMT-B training and are required to maintain their status on the National Registry. So they are at least EMT-B qualified. That isn’t a very high-paying job in the civilian world though. It’s EMT-B vs EMT-P is about analogous to security guard vs. police officer.
There are jobs like infantryman which have virtually no marketable civilian skills or certifications outside of general stuff like “team player” and “responsibility” stuff.