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Originally Posted by Lubaolong
There's nothing wrong with being in the military. It is a noble job. The pay and compensation is just too much.
Compare Joe that joins the military at 18 to Timmy that goes to a good university, gets an engineering degree (the most challenging, highest paying bachelor degree) :
Joe, age 22, married, Army Seargent, hanging out in Hawaii, surfing having a good time:
Yearly Regular Military Compensation: $61,016.32
(Basic Pay+BAS+BAH+COLA)
http://www.dod.mil/militarypay/pay/calc/index.html
Timmy, age 22, college graduate, Electrical Engineer:
Average Yearly Starting Salary: $52,009.00
http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/15/pf/c...ex.htm?cnn=yes
Tell me why someone that joins the military with a high school education should earn that much more than one of the highest paying, most technical college degrees? They shouldn't.
After 8 years, do you think maybe the engineering degree will pay off?
Joe, age 26, married, SFC, still surfing his life away:
Yearly Regular Military Compensation: $80,652.96
same site as above
Timmy, age 26, 4 years professional experience, working on his master's, Electrical Engineer, also in Hawaii:
Medium Yearly Salary: $72,205.50
salary.com
Again, why should Joe that maybe went to a 6 week training course to teach him to type numbers into a database be making more? It's ridiculous. |
What's ridiculous is this post, the "logic" behind it, and your entire premise.
First of all, the compensation calculator is a fucking joke. When I was in the Corps, we used to get some form showing how much we were actually making adjusting our pay and bennies for what we'd have a civilians, assuming our tiny little barracks room was supposed to be comparable to an off-base apartment (an off-base aparmtment with no kitchen and no cable that you had to field day once a week and submit to surprise inspections and which you weren't technically allowed to drink in and couldn't leave your stuff unlocked), our chow hall meals were real food, and so on. According to the form, we were all farting through silk, which was of course a joke, and hence led to the annual carnival of derision we heaped on it.
COLA is standardized, actual cost of living ain't; hence, how well you do is dicey. Back when I was in, a married enlisted man could do okay in the area around Camp Lejeune since the local cost of living was cheap; if that same enlisted man got posted to, say, Fort Belvoir VA or the Pentagon or became an active duty advisor to the DC or Maryland Guard, they'd be paupers typically since the cost of living around there is a scandal.
Besides that, it's no fucking comparison.
"Timmy" generally doesn't work 24/7. His company don't own his ass, can't cancel his vacation on a whim, and is not likely to abruptly order him away from home and family for months on end, including sending him to hot, dirty, smelly, unpleasant shitholes where the locals may or may not start shooting at him or detonating homemade bombs at any given moment. Among other things.
And when "Timmy" finds himself in a middle-management role equivilant to, say, what a Staff NCO or company-grade officer does for considerably less money, he's not expected to stay on top of his employees at all times, not only being responsible for their job performance but also expected to be aware of their home and family situations, counsel them for any problems they have with booze, drugs, or writing rubber checks and straighten them out, or bail them out of jail on the weekend because they got drunk and stupid at a local titty bar and then likewise counsel them and steer them back onto the straight and narrow.
Point being: your entire comparison is so absurdly flawed as to make me wonder if you're serious or kidding.
USMMAMAN: we rarely see eye-to-eye, of course. This thread is one of those times...props, man, for saving me some typing.