Army Reserve battles an exodus

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
We have a solution to this - we pay our soldiers lots and lots of tax free danger money.

We get the tax free danger money but for some reason Uncle Sam skipped the "lots and lots" part.

[Japher]

I want to join... wifey won't let me

Can't blame her. They'd probably just have me make bombs anyway. Yet, I'd like active duty. There are plenty like me, and many of them are my friends, including my neighbor I grew up with who is a Ranger. He was so pisssed when the war broke out because he had finished his "duty" that he reenlisted...

[Patroklos]

Lets pay the soldiers more, but not spend our money on the military...

Some posters have an odd duality of opinons from thread to thread.

I, of course, would love a pay raise

-Pat

[David Floyd]

Let's drastically cut the force structure, and drastically increase benefits. We'll come out ahead financially by quite a bit, and best of all, we will no longer have the capability to deploy large ground forces - not only will we not have the ships to do so, but we won't even have the large ground forces themselves!

The $300 billion or so per year that we save by doing this can be used for all sorts of useful things - well, two useful things, anyway: Tax cuts and paying down the debt.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Oerdin


We get the tax free danger money but for some reason Uncle Sam skipped the "lots and lots" part.

Historically Australian troops have always been highly paid for overseas deployment to war zones. This goes right back to WW1 when Australian troops were paid something like 5 times what a British soldier got. It was a source of resentment for other allied soldiers - but ours was a fully volunteer force.

As a result, deployments to war zones are very lucrative and highly sought after, including today.

In Iraq our troops get $130 a day tax free on top of their normal pay, overseas deployment and hardship allowances.

[Dinner]

With base pay, hostile fire pay, basic allowance for quarters (BAQ), over seas pay, and hardship duty pay my take home will be about $52k per year tax free. That isn't great for the BS and possible death but it isn't that terrible either. Back home I'd have to make about $75k-$80k in order to take home the same amount as I get in a tax free zone.

Still when you realize a highway patrolman with 2.5 years experience makes an average of $65k (more if he works over time) the military does seem underpaid. The UN pay scale would be around $80k tax free for someone of my experience. Unfortunately, the US doesn't believe in paying its soldiers at UN scale. The really odd thing is the US often ends up paying soldiers from other countries at UN scale if they agree to take part in missions.

[Ned]

How about we add a few Iraqi divisions that become part of the US Army and are deployable outside of Iraq?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Let's drastically cut the force structure, and drastically increase benefits. We'll come out ahead financially by quite a bit, and best of all, we will no longer have the capability to deploy large ground forces - not only will we not have the ships to do so, but we won't even have the large ground forces themselves!

The $300 billion or so per year that we save by doing this can be used for all sorts of useful things - well, two useful things, anyway: Tax cuts and paying down the debt.

Don't forget lessons in Arabic and the Qu'ran when these *******s come for your pansy ass.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DanS
Didn't a similar exodus occur after GWI?

Yeah - when Clinton axed 3AD and 5ID and gutted VII Corps.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ned
MtG, Why don't they simply add two (or more) divisions to the regular army? This Iraq situation does not look like it is going away soon. The war on terror continues; and we have to deal weakly with NK and Iran.

You've got them - the six Stryker brigades. And that's why equipment BOIPs are behind schedule and underfunded for the rest of the Army, and a host of other procurement problems.

[David Floyd]

Don't forget lessons in Arabic and the Qu'ran when these *******s come for your pansy ass.

That's a silly troll - we both know that they can't invade the US.

[David Floyd]

And, for that matter, just stop pissing them off by being the world's greatest and most interventionist military power, and we should be fine. 9/11 didn't happen in Europe, after all.

[Q Classic]

kinda funny, i think. we're in the arab world, right? and then there's the term "exodus". like moses came to rumsfeld and said "let my people go!" but not.

i'm not going over there. nope, not interested. problem in east asia? sure i'll enlist if there's no place for me in the foreign service.

[SlowwHand]

Re: Army Reserve battles an exodus

Originally posted by Sava



I guess they don't buy the "one weekend a month" BS...

Che's buddies do.
What this means is a step closer to conscription.

Laugh now, clown.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by David Floyd




That's a silly troll - we both know that they can't invade the US.

With your hippie-ass idea of a defensive posture, they could, except for the likelihood we'd have already been speaking German or Russian.