<I suspect the author is putting words in his mouth.>
I concur. I get the impression the sailor isn’t that upset.
What is bad though, is that apparently the DOD didn’t inform him that he is entitled to medical insurance for 5 years.
Obama was so grateful to the SEALS for doing the job, perhaps he can start a fund to support him, but I’m not holding my breath.
The author may be frustrated that he’s no longer sleeping with Sharon Stone.
I hate to bring up a weasel angle, but…if this guy wanted out of SEAL duty for whatever reason (family pressures, tired of fighting, wanted to work on his novel, wanted become the Pokémaster, whatever), how hard would it have been for him to get some quiet shore duty if he wanted to serve out his full 20 years? Maybe as an instructor, or something?*
I mean, he had to be competent enough to make it to SEAL Team Six in the first place, and I’m sure the higher-ups would be willing to give him a little leeway if he wasn’t causing a lot of trouble, or anything.
*(Hell, two SEALs later became astronauts—the last one an Afghanistan combat veteran.)
It’s sounding like this guy left the military for greener pastures and is now regretting it. Or as others have said, the article is misrepresenting him.
I am sympathetic for him in the abstract. I take his story as emblematic of the many people who serve in the military and then feel shortchanged afterward for whatever reason. Seems I hear a lot about vets who do qualify for various benefits, yet have to jump through a lot of hoops to get them. I can certainly see how that’s very disheartening.
There was a thread recently (I think in Great Debates) in which the OP felt veterans weren’t given much respect. I don’t generally agree with that viewpoint, but I also don’t believe in military worship. I’m appreciative of what the military does for us, but I’m also a big critic at times. However, I can get behind the idea that we should not be nickel and diming people who put in a fair amount of time. 16 years is not a walk in the park. Irrespective of his personally killing bin Laden, I hope he gets something.
Thank you. No wonder I hadn’t heard of it. It doesn’t apply to me since my benefits are due to disability. Phew, had me scared for a bit.
Sounds like the guy has applied for disability for his litany of problems. Applying for benefits takes time, but is no where near the nightmare I’ve heard getting Social Security disability can be.
Just so everyone knows, when you leave the military, whether it is after 3 or 30 years of service, you are required to take a transition class. The command is only required to send you to a two day class, but if you are senior at all you will go through the full weeklong class. There are different classes depending on your rank and whether or not you are retiring. In the class they tell you about all of your benefits, and give great advise in finding jobs. Recruiters come in and you interview right there. Sometimes they also start your VA disability paperwork right there. There is a program where if you get all of your VA paperwork in at least 90 days before you separate, you start receiving benefits a month after separation.
Is it 20 years to have a pension, or 20 years before you receive money from the pension?
Outside of disability or other mitigating factors, of which I am sure there a at least a few, 20 years is the minimum amount of military service in the US military to receive a pension. Unless things have changed since I was in, 20 years gets you half your base pay, plus medical benefits (and I know this has changed some with the whole TriCare thing) for life for you and your spouse, and dependents until they are 21 (why do I want to say 24 here?). 30 years gets you two thirds base pay for life. I do believe this is all structured on your rank and pay when you retire.
Additional years in rank increase your pay even if you don’t advance in rank before you retire, so I think that is factored in as well.
You can also finish your 20 in the reserve, but that is a more complicated point system. Then your retirement starts at age 60.
Right. Twenty years active and you get the half-salary pension immediately, pass thirty and you get the max, based on your rank and seniority at retirement. Do it in Reserve and you are eligible upon reaching “retirement age”.
Looking at the article all the way to the end, I get a sense that the writer intended to make a point about deficiencies in the transition-out and family-support policies and procedures, using “the Shooter” as some sort of Very Special example, as in, “look, not even the guys who plugged OBL are spared the inadequacies that other vets and families are facing.” But that line falters when then the writer, quoting some mostly unnamed officers (NOT the Shooter), brings up towards the end of the article a notion that there should be a ***special ***transition/outplacement process for the “super elite”, “Tier One vets”. Which he may have meant that ex-SOF’s particular skillsets and possible problems (from injuries or other cumulative stresses) required specific adaptations, but I know my first instinctive reaction to use of those words was to ask if all the “ordinary” grunts who have also been getting smeared with the blood and the guts of friends, enemies and collateral civs are chopped liver. They ALL need a better transition/outplacement process.
But if you left of your own free will short of 20, you knew what the deal was and has been since at least WW2.
In a job that I held, you had to put in 5 years of service before your pension was “vested”, meaning it’s yours even if you quit the company. Is this 20 years military requirement for the vesting or is it a time period after which you can actually receive money from the pension?
Its twenty years before you get anything at all. Nineteen years eleven months you leave the military, you never see a pension check. Wait one month, and you leave and get a check for half pay for the rest of your life (active duty) or half pay when you reach retirement age (reserves).
And there are plenty of 45 year old guys in desk jobs putting in their final years.
(It seems so strange that my friends who joined the military when we were out of high school or college are looking at a few years until retirement at half pay).
I think you’re still confused. If you put in 20 years and then retire, you start collecting a pension check typically a month later. As long as you do all your paperwork right you basically never skip a beat. I was in for 24 years and when I retired I collected my first pension check a month after my last check before retirement as though I had never stopped getting paid.
There is no “vesting”, vesting is typical with many retirement plans and State government retirement plans because those plans allow you to accrue assets in the plan that are unique to you and can be separated from the plan. Typically once your vesting period is over you have some level of guaranteed control over your assets. With many private/State plans, that means after 5 years if you leave you’re eligible for benefits once you reach retirement age, but not right away. But because you’re fully vested, you have the option to withdraw your contributions to the plan (sometimes they allow you to withdraw + interests) as a lump sum. This can make sense for people that haven’t really worked there for 15-20 years and who would be better served rolling those vested benefit dollars into a private IRA. [Note this is specifically for people under those retirement plans who leave employment, you typically can’t cash out vested benefits while still working at that employer, so it’s more for people who work at a place with such a plan then leave it after a few years mid-career.]
The military retirement system is different. There is no vesting period and you accrue no actual benefits in an account you are entitled to, rather once you have 20 years of service in you have an entitlement to receive a payment, financed from the general revenue of the Federal government, for the rest of your life. Entering service prior to 1980 I was entitled to 50% of my final pay (meaning final month’s basic pay) plus 2.5% for each year of service over 20 years. More modern retirees receive 50% of the “average pay” of their final three years of service (this basically means the new plan is to your detriment if you get a pay increase your last month of service, since it’ll only be one month in a 36 month average, under the old system if you got a pay increase your last month then that was what your pension was based on.)
Anyone in the armed forces does have access to a 401k-like plan that allows you invest in the market through some mutual-fund like vehicles. This is the Thrift Savings Plan, which was not actually introduced until after I retired.
The military has also some provisions for cashing out with lump sums and has also offered people special cash out deals a few times to try and ease the entitlement burden.
Just as a point of clarification, TriCare is basically an HMO/PPO type benefit available to retirees and active duty personnel that pretty much all retirees can use. But for retirees there are annual fees, copays etc. So it is not “free.” TriCare is similar to health insurance you’d have as a civilian and basically works through the private healthcare system.
Someone like the soldier in the mentioned article, who left service recently and had served in a combat area within the past 5 years would most likely qualify for VA benefits unless he exceeded the income thresholds. VA benefits are administered by the Department of Veteran’s Affairs and while it has some private medical service done here and there is primarily in the form of DVA ran hospitals and medical centers. VA medical is essentially free, and was basically created under the concept of giving wounded combat veterans free medical treatment for life.
TriCare was sort of developed (originally as CHAMPUS) a replacement for many people who were using VA benefits because the VA system was being overwhelmed. In the restructuring VA benefits is basically for special classes of low income recent retirees, people with disabilities incurred in service, and people wounded that need medical ongoing medical attention and etc.
When did this begin? I got out in Dec of 1984 and there was no class or anything. I just figured things out on my own. And what I figured out right away is all the talk of “Your military experience will open doors!!” wasn’t quite accurate. It took 4 months for me to find a barely-above-minimum-wage job after 11 years of service. It was nearly a year after my discharge that I was finally able to land my civil service position from which I eventually retired. And I only got that because the spouse of a coworker hand-carried my resume to the man who eventually hired me - I’d have never been considered otherwise.
Now Esquire is complaining that people are complaining that they overstated the Seal’s situation.
You seem knowledgeable about that. What happens if you were wanting to stay in for 20 and they booted you because of budget cuts ( as is likely with sequestration )?
In order to reenlist, you have to be recommended (at least, that’s how it used to work, and I’m not aware that it’s changed.) So if you were a mediocre performer, you wouldn’t necessarily be kicked out, but you might not be permitted to continue once your enlistment period was up. The phrase when I was in was “needs of the Navy” - if they didn’t need you and your skills, you were out once you met your obligations.
A sailor who worked for me was highly recommended for reenlistment, and he found out that once he did, he was going to be sent on recruiter duty. He didn’t want to do that, and he fought to get the orders changed. But it didn’t matter - the Navy needed him in the recruiter billet. So he opted to leave the Navy. He wanted to do 20, but he wanted to do it his way. Sorry, dude, that’s not how it works. You don’t get to cherry-pick your career path.
I also know that when some specialty areas were overmanned, the only way one could reenlist would be to change rate. A friend of mine had been trained as an electronics technician, but in order to stay in, she had to change to a storekeeper, since there were waaaaaay too many technicians of her seniority at the time, and she didn’t happen to be the best of the best. She made the switch and finished out her time anyway - again, needs of the Navy.
Even I faced it as an officer - shortly after I got out, in a moment of panic, I called a recruiter to see if I could get back on active duty. It turned out that in my specialty at my rank, the manning was at 115% - no way would they take me back in. Fortunately, my moment of panic passed and everything worked out…
So, if the military has to reduce its ranks due to budget cuts or any other reason, unless you happen to be among the best at what you do, you may find yourself unable to finish your 20. Your desire to serve may be strong, but needs of the service come before personal desires.