Yes, I can follow the issue of lacking financial discipline. I'm obviously very ignorant on military matters. Doesn't the most dangerous assignment merit a higher reward ... both honorary and financial? Don't those injured in action get a higher pension or something? For what some of those guys went through in one week, they should be set up for life.
Military salaries and disability compensation are almost as complicated as the tax code.
"Dangerous assignments" merit a small boost in pay, but it doesn't compensate for the additional risk. Additional pay in a combat zone may be the equivalent of a hundred bucks a month, and aviation or submarine pay a little more. Some get a bonus for volunteering for additional training that leads to more frequent combat deployments (like SEALs or Special Forces) while others volunteer for advanced technical training (submarines, pilots, medical).
Recruiting and retention, on the other hand, attract a lot of money. It's occasionally possible to get a bonus of $5K-$10K to sign up for some Marine specialties or Army Ranger training, depending on how short-handed they are. Nuclear-trained submarine officers are paid $30K/year bonus contracts of 3-5 years to stay on beyond their initial five-year obligation, and this is in addition to their ~$100K/year total compensation. If my daughter decides to stay in the Navy's nuclear Surface Warfare community after 2019, she could simultaneously double-dip two bonus contracts for about $50K/year (in addition to that $100K/year compensation).
You have to wonder why the military is being so nice to
suckers us. Why are they having such a hard time retaining such talented servicemembers?
In general, someone who's severely injured in combat or training will receive a disability pension based on their years of service. However that's not enough to pay for a lifetime of caregivers and continuing medical treatment. Some of the additional compensation comes in the form of VA healthcare and Social Security Disability Income, but both of those systems are difficult to navigate and unevenly applied. VA clinics also have a wide bell curve of quality. I can barely handle the VA disability claims system as a financially-competent retiree with plenty of time and patience. I can't imagine it being done by someone with injuries and trauma. The reason I can't imagine it is because most of them can't do it, and they end up getting even less compensation than they're eligible for.
There's also the issues of trauma and pain management. Some humans handle them better than others. Like police and firefighters, some servicemembers will go through horrific situations with nary a bad memory while others are permanently stressed and even clinically depressed. I know people who won't even tour a submarine pierside due to claustrophobia issues, let alone get underway underwater in one. Some veterans live with a lifetime of chronic pain while others end up in even worse shape from alcohol and prescription painkillers.
We don't have very good ways of figuring out who's going to handle the experiences or who's exceptionally susceptible to it, let alone whether those situations are going to happen. But that's the same with any first-responder occupation.
Someone explain this to me...
I am an e5 that dreams of escaping the clutches of the enlisted masses and commissioning to the aristocratic nobility of the officer corp. Very few of my fellow NCOs have that vision. They would rather stay on the smaller pay scale and think they would have a more hands on quality of life as an NCO or are getting out real soon. I've had an XO tell me its not much better. I've got dollar signs in my eyes looking at the pay scale differences, want the bigger pension, and the prettier dress uniforms.
Why doesn't everyone else believe the grass is greener on the other side? What's keeping them back? I know I got to get more physically competitive before I make another commissioning attempt, but some of these NCOs are PT studs and could rock out the school house.
I don't think that going officer is something you are "kept back" from. Life might not be better as an officer, depending on what you want to get out of the military. Enlisted ranks have some advantages over officers (more training, more time to get experience, less paperwork, more time with the joes, etc), so if those weigh more heavily for you than higher pay and better uniforms, then maybe you should stay enlisted? I agree with Spartana, even if you are a high speed NCO, the next step doesn't have to be OCS, you can become an even more kickass NCO and keep having a direct impact on your unit.
God bless the kick ass NCOs. If I don't commission I will go through life feeling I have not lived up to my potential. A lot of the people on this forum are happy retiring early, forgoing more stressful promotions, having a sense of what enough is and being able to walk away. Maybe these NCOs are the same. Maybe they're culturally institutionalized to be crabs in a bucket. Either way I am still wanting to climb the ladder rung by rung by rung. Too much of my self actualization is provided by the National Guard and a lack of career success there will cause me more mental anguish than financial problems.
Have you actually seen any of these "aristocratic nobility of the officer corp"? There's a reason that officers have to be declared gentlemen by an Act of Congress (and yes my spouse has one of those certificates too). On the other hand respect is a two-way street that has to be earned.
At my last training command we had a slick college-degree process, and every year ~10% of our instructors would get a college degree (or an advanced degree). Nearly every one of the enlisted college graduates pursued a commission. Every one of those E-5s and E-6s could have chosen to go back to sea as a division leader, yet they chose to "start over" at O-1 rank. Three of my submariner shipmates became Air Force officers, and at least two of them stuck it out all the way to the pension.
Again you have to wonder why the military is being so much nicer to the officers. The suckiness is right in front of you every day at the E-5 rank, but it's a little more insidious (and backstabbing) at the officer ranks. It's not necessarily better or worse, just different. In the Navy it's actually easier to promote to O-5 than to E-8 because it's harder to get enough people into the officer ranks and then to persuade them to stick around for the O-5 promotion. You have to wonder why the federal government has to be so nice to them.
I'll speculate that it's the additional responsibility and
accountability for people's safety and the mission, not necessarily in that order. As an E-5 you can screw up and break your gear or kill a fellow servicemember. As an officer you have to be ready to give the order to sacrifice not just a few people but an entire group (and all of their hardware, including the submarine they rode in on) for the mission. As a 24-year-old junior officer I was quite willing (and thoroughly trained) to incinerate most of the globe with nuclear ICBMs. We didn't expect the enlisted crewmembers to make that decision, although most of them were certainly willing to help turn the knobs and press the buttons.
Does that sound like it's worth the pay, the pension, and the cool dress uniforms?
You should not pursue a commission for the money (and all the trappings). You should pursue a commission because you want that additional burden of responsibility and accountability. (You'll get more authority, too, but you'll get as much respect for that as an O-1 as you're giving it as an E-5.) You should do it because you want to improve the military as much as you can, and you generally have more power to do that as an officer than as an enlisted servicemember. (Although when I look at some E-9s compared to some O-5s, my money's on the Master Chief.) You should pursue a commission because you want to take care of even more people than you're taking care of now, and you want to take care of your country.
But don't do it for the money. You can get more of that at Microsoft or Google or Comcast any day.
