For years and years we paid the military (and federal government) workers peanuts, with the hook that at some point in the distant future, you’d get a pension. We wouldn’t have gotten many? most? of these people to stay in without this hook. So the system did serve the military, the Nation, and those who stayed 20+ years well.
Now it seems as though that may not be sufficient. Or DoD competitors for manpower are no longer offering a pension so DoD doesn’t have to.
But as mentioned up thread, cliff vesting is soon going away with blended retirement. We’ll see how that goes. Many of us have concerns.
Theoretically you can serve more than enough to qualify and get nothing if you commit a serious enough infraction. Administratively - and subject to change - if you get to 18 years you will be given a mandatory retirement date when you hit 20 years for some things (failure to get promoted, failing physical fitness standards).
I eventually did retire with a pension so it wasn’t a problem. However, my W2 had the box checked that said I was covered by a pension plan which affected my ability to contribute to an IRA and I could have been kicked out with nothing.
OK. So if an Air Force Officer murders his family for example, would you still like him/her to get their pension?
It’s generally pretty hard to get kicked out prior to 20. And if you’re sufficiently junior that you can’t make all of the promotion gates to get to 20, unless your spouse is making some serious coin, you’ll never get to the gross income threshold where the pension plan notification would have made any difference to full contribution to an IRA anyway.
Every system is cruddy for SOMEBODY. I don’t think that someone who only served for 10 years and got out is deserving of a check every month for the rest of their life. And everyone knew what was required for retirement pay before they joined.
I’m happy with that system, and glad I retired before the NEW system was put into place.