In this thread, there’s a brief mention of the military’s so-called ‘windfall clause’: if you come into money suddenly, you are supposedly forced to leave the military. I’m a civilian employee of the DOD, and have heard this rule from military people I work with, but I always thought it was an urban myth, or at least an exaggeration. The reasons I’ve heard for it are that sudden money can lead a soldier/sailor/airman/marine to become insubordinate, or that it can hurt morale.
My questions are: Does the rule exist? And if so, is it automatic, or something that’s done only when a problem has been demonstrated? (It doesn’t seem practical to throw away all the money that goes into training military personnel if it ain’t broke). And lastly (assuming there is such a rule), whom does it apply to? Are officers and/or elite groups like the SEALs and Rangers exempt? TIA.
Um, not as far as I can tell for the Air Force. AFI 36-3208 Separation of Airmen has references to financial hardships, but I don’t see anything about “financial windfalls” or similar. . .
Of course, the individual could simply not reenlist, or opt to separate (officers) when their active duty service commitment was up. I cannot see any intelligent commander holding a person back from deployment because ‘they’re from money’. This gives way to a breeding ground of problems–money can buy your way out of a deployment (countermanding orders and good discipline).
Tripler
I’ll keep digging through some regs, though. . .
My thoughts exactly – it seems to me that the same problems attributed to ‘sudden’ wealth (insubordination/effect on morale) would apply to wealth that had been there when a person enlisted/got a commission. Unless the military doesn’t let people who have money enlist (and if that were true, they wouldn’t have taken Pat Tillman).
It also seems devilishly hard to codify. How much sudden wealth? $1,000,000? $100,000? $10,000?
The only Google hits for ‘windfall clause’ and military I get are some odd Social Security rules that apply to folks who are simultaneously eligible for certain military/government retirement plans.
I’m calling BS on the OP’s friends. Still, neat story…
I don’t know anything about this but when I read that other thread my first take was that the ‘windfall clause’ was to accommodate pure schlubbs who are toiling away for uncle sam and suddenly hit the lotto or inherit a dynasty from some distant relative. So they can buy their way out from a contract they no longer need to work their way out from under. 'Cause I’m pretty sure if you tried to force them to fulfill the contract and stay to the end they’d become very disruptive.
There is no such rule. In the early 60’s we had an ensign in my battation who came from one of the big tobacco families. He used to hang out and drink w/ the enlisted men. Drove a new T-bird, was always in trouble w/ his superiors. He’s the only 0-1 I ever heard of that didn’t get promoted when he was due, it was almost automatic. He finished his tour on active duty and got out. He just didn’t give a hoot, no matter how much they tried to discipline him, he’d just laugh about it.
He once took out a power pole, on base, w/ the T-bird, drunk at the time. I also saw him intoduce himself, to his platoon, as Alfred E. Neuman, a popular Mad Magazine character of the time. He actually looked a bit like the character.
It was rumored that his father had forced him to join the Navy in hopes it would settle him down. I don’t think it worked.
The military has no problems handling “disruptive” personnel. They generally involve some form of non-judicial punishment or court-martial. It doesn’t matter how much the money the person has, either. The U.S. military is a true meritocracy–they couldn’t care less how much money you have, and you can’t buy your way out of a contract, either.
Not to mention the fact that unlike many third-world miltaries, U.S. military personnel are paid quite well, and are responsible for quite expensive equipment. For example, as a 25-year old junior officer, standing watch as the Officer of the Deck or Ship’s Duty Officer, I was in charge of a $1 billion submarine. At the time, I made more money than I knew what to do with (I was single at the time ), and really couldn’t care less if some junior sailor was rolling in dough, so long as he followed orders.
I served with people who had or came from money. The military doesn’t care where it comes from, it just wants to make sure you aren’t overextending yourself by buying that shiny new T-bird.
This article about the shortage of officers in the army indicates that a financial windfall may be a reason for voluntary resignation.
“We generally don’t lose majors,” says Aswell, unless they are forced out for disciplinary reasons. The few dozen majors who do leave voluntarily every year tend to do so for personal reasons - a family crisis, an unexpected financial windfall, or in some cases they are OCS graduates whose prior enlisted service qualifies them for retirement ahead of their peers.
I don’t know if it’s fair to compare with other militaries. In my experience as a military person, I was paid quite poorly. Especially as a single guy without the right to collect BAQ and BAS. In fact, it was a common problem in my particular field. Everyone left to easily double, treble, or quadruple their salary to the point that the exit interviews were trying to pin a leadership problem on our supervisor! I absolutely loved my job, the people, the responsibility, the millions of dollars under my charge, but the salary was a pittance, and the discrimination for being single was a double insult. I might have stayed on had I even the basic right to BAQ and BAS, despite the still-low salary versus the civilian world.
I know that when I was an Army “brat” back in the 1970s and '80s, my father didn’t make a lot of money. This began to change when Reagan was elected.
In my experience, military personnel are paid quite well today. I took a pay cut when I got out six years ago and still don’t make what I made as a Navy lieutenant, if you correct for inflation. Not to mention that I now pay for health insurance, when it was free for me and my family when I was in the Navy.
Enlisted personnel don’t make as much as officers, of course, but still make pretty decent money compared to someone on the outside with equivalent education. That being said, some enlisted folks go on to quite lucrative careers outside the military, but these careers are often based on the training they received in the military. Navy nuclear personnel, for example go to school at Uncle Sam’s expense for nearly two years before they ever see a ship or submarine.
Similar experience here, although I didn’t think the pay was all that bad. But the “single guy” bias when details and after-hours duty came down drove me bonkers; as a single E-5, I was often treated with less consideration than an E-I-Owe-You-1 fresh from Boot just 'cause he was married.
Then there’s the superior who lives off-post in a pig-sty coming in to inspect your barracks room and failing you because he found a little bit of dust on the door sill, and making you slave all night scrubbing the barracks, while he goes home to the missus.
This is one of those "I know a guy who knows a guy’’ things. One of the guys at Kirtland AFB in New Mexico won the lottery and he was out of the military within three months.
Effectively, you could easily leave once you won the lottery. You just have to smoke a huge doobie the day before your pee test. You’d probably get a dishonorable discharge but you would have millions of dollars so you wouldn’t give a shit.
The GQ is whether there is an official rule that would let you out and that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Looking at the 2007 pay tables, we’ll pick an E-4 – pretty typical rank for getting in and getting out. He’s making 1978.50 per month after four years. That’s only $23742 per year! That’s $11.41 an hour. He’ll be able to make more than that, plus insurance and other fringe. You know, if he applies himself. Granted, perhaps not all career choices may have that possibility, but hey, I wasn’t a grunt but a tech guy.
Lets take an O-3 after four years. At $4392 per month, that’s a little more respectable, but it’s still only $52704 per year, or just over $25 buck per hour.
Everything’s relative I suppose. Those are both better than sitting in the ghetto doing nothing or working at Burger King. Given typically who enlists, I guess I’ll admit that for enlisted, it is fairly decent money for certain types of work, especially at such a young point in a career. But an E-9 with over 26 years of service is pretty crappily paid at only just over $66,000 per year!
To be fair, consider that certain classes of people receive additional, tax-free benefits. Basic Allowance for Sustenance, and Basic Allowance for Quarters. In parts of the world, you also get Cost of Living Allowance. You get hazard pay. You get a little bit extra for purchasing uniforms and such.
Yeah, everything’s relative, but the conditions we have to endure for that kind of money really unbalance the equation–I highly doubt a mid-level manager at a corporation would put up with living in a plywood hut or TEMPER Tent for a year for anything less than six figures.
[/hijack]
For some of the previous anecdotes: I’ll bet that some of those winners were a few weeks from reenlisting/end of term anyway, and winning that lottery just made the choice a little easier. . .
Tripler
. . . man, I wish I could be one of those winners.
), and really couldn’t care less if some junior sailor was rolling in dough, so long as he followed orders.