Vitamin “P”, I’m sure.
I believe there is a diference between “Sign on the dotted line and we will give you a $15,000 re-enlistment bonus” and " A similar program for deployed National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers also remains in effect. Under that plan, reservists can receive up to $7,500 for a three-year re-enlistment, or $15,000 for a six-year service extension." What are the conditions for receiving this bonus, and what percentage ever get the $15,000?
From the sounds of it, the program was cancelled because there already was such a program in place. You re-up for 6 years and get a $15,000 bonus. The program that was cancelled would’ve given them another $15,000 which is against the rules. From the article.
As for percentages, I honestly have no idea. Are you saying that these bonuses are also not being given out?
Like I said before, if a soldier has a signed contract for a bonus, and that isn’t being honored - that is worthy of outrage.
Otherwise, this amounts to changes in the bonus program, which are continuous and ongoing, and based entirely upon the needs of the service.
May I propose we adopt the plaid as the unit of worth? There is the slight problem of unit size - sort of the opposite of the farad problem - but with the aid of the standard prefixes we could have a starter here.
“Dude, I rate that a megaplaid, tops. :rolleyes:”
Another insight on bonuses: when I was an officer cadet, I was told that engineers were now getting $10,000/yr bonuses because they were an undermanned career field, but that nobody had gotten one of these bonuses just yet.
When I was a senior cadet, I was told that engineers would be getting these $10k/yr bonuses in a lump sum of $40k, for signing up for four more years – provided they were not years of one’s original service commitment.
When I was a few months into my initial service commitment, I was told several times that the Mythical Engineering Bonus was finally being paid. If I would sign up for another four years beyond my term right now I could guarantee my place in line for the bonus. With three years to go before my commitment was up, I was skeptical.
Several more times that year I was approached and wowed with tales of a Friend-of-a-friend of the colonel or major talking to me. He or she had just gotten the $40,000 up front for signing and boy was it nice to have money to invest and a little to play with, and so forth. I did not sign.
When I made first lieutenant, I was offered the bonus again. At this point, I knew people who had received the bonuses. I still did not see the percentage in it for me – having seen only one assignment, I knew that my next tour could suck, and I did not want to commit to an eight-year career if I was going to get out (by your eighth year as an officer, you often get into overlapping commitments that make it hard to leave when you want to). The argument was this: “If you’re going to stay in for 20, then why not sign up for 4?” “Sir, I’m not sure I’m a 20-year kind of guy.” “You don’t know that for sure, though.” “That’s my point, sir.”
A friend who did sign on the dotted line (because he was sure he wanted a career) was held to his service commitment… and then the bonus payments were yanked. It turns out that the paperwork consisted of two separate contracts: one to re-up, and one that promised a place in line conditions permitting, budget factors and local weather may have an impact on final amount of payments, void where prohibited, one per household, do not taunt happy fun colonel etc. etc. for the payments. The number of payments did not equal the number of people in line for those payments. A few people were indignant, but most of them shrugged and said “there will be other bonuses, and everyone gets screwed on a bonus once in their career.”
My point is that nobody signed up for extensions who didn’t already intend to make a career out of the military, and most of the people dying for our country aren’t doing it for the money. Is it a shitty way to do business? Yep. Does the average career soldier/sailor/airman/marine mind? Yeah, it pisses them off a little. What are they going to do about it? Give the country their best, year after year.
No, you do not get the $15,000 bonus if you re-up for six years. You can get up to $15,000 if you re-up for six years. Remember all those ads that declared that you can get extremely low financing for your house or automobile? No many people ever qualified for the lowest rate, but that was the only rate they ever advertised.
Again, so what? None of these bonuses gave $15,000 to any soldier that reenlisted for six years. They all gave more money to some soldiers and less to others, with some soldiers not eligible at all.
That’s just how military bonuses work.
I see. Do we know if the bonus that was scrapped was a guaranteed bonus or another military “guaranteed bonus?”
Yeah, but if the soldiers were already aware of those other $15,000 bonuses, it doesn’t seem unreasonable for them to assume that this was a second $15,000 bonus in addition to the older ones. It sounds like there might still be something fishy here, depending on how the revoked bonuses were sold to the rank and file.
Bob Loblaw: Demonstrating how to turn “I voted Dubya in '04” into more than sixty words.
-Joe, tips hat
True. Unfortunately the bonuses are capped at $15k for the six year renewal per Mr. Motos cite. There’s no way for them to get the extra signing bonus. It sucks like hell, but those are the rules.
I have to agree with Moto here. If they aren’t getting any bonuses, then they should get whumped. This just seems like an open and shut case. The extra bonus was cancelled because there was a pre-existing program and because it was against the rules.
This is shifty as hell, and I don’t particularly care for it, but it’s not lying.
But the $64,000 question is: Are the conditions to receive the already established bonuses the same, easier or harder than the conditions for the bonuses that were recently cancelled? I’m wondering if troops were given a bait-and-switch after they signed up along the lines of “I know we promised you a $15,000 bonus if you signed up for six years if you qualified, but golly, now that you’ve signed on the dotted line the qualifications for that kind of bonus are totally different!”
It’s a matter of integrity and common human decency.
I didn’t think that was the subject at all. Weren’t we talking about military paymasters?
That’s exactly what this is about. As I said earlier, the only guarantee a serviceman has when dealing with the military is the trustworthiness and good word of the Pentagon. The fact that you and so many others see this bait and switch tactic as buisness as usual speaks volumes.
How many other hawks who claim to care about our servicemen shrug and laugh when the military lies to servicmen. No wonder they can’t meet recruiting goals.
I agree. Having observed them on my campus, I am appalled that ‘the recruiter is lying’ is the commonly accepted wisdom around here, and worse, is justified from what I have seen of their recruiting techniques.
Would we accept this as SOP if these guys were trying to sell us a car?
No. I’ve said before that the military ought to honor its promises. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be able to change those promises as circumstances change.
I also wonder about people who would use incidents like this to bash the Bush administration, Biggirl. The government is a lot bigger than the presidency, you know. And folks like you who grasp on every little incident like this for partisan advantage are either simpleheaded or opportunistic.
When the military fucked up my pay (and they did, more than once), it was when I was an active duty sailor between 1993 and 1998. Do I get to blame Bill Clinton for that?
Why wouldn’t you blame Clinton? He was the Commander at the time, wasn’t he? Ultimately it was his responsibility to make sure the people saving and protecting our asses get paid correctly, isn’t it.
Seriously, I cannot understand this la-di-da attitude. “Military officials lie all the time, get used to it.” Fuck that noise. Get angry.
It’s not a “la-di-da attitude”. It is an attitude of deal with the problem at the level that will get it solved, and escalate from there. I happily bash Bush whenever he make a bad presidential move (which seems to be nearly every presidential move he makes), but this is bureaucratic nonsense at a much lower level than the Joint Chiefs of Staff.