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| Post Number: 11
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kuru 
Detonate.net's 9mm wielding geek-hit-Goddess
Group: Members
Posts: 2566
Joined: Aug. 2000
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Posted on: Jun. 06 2002,18:27 |
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Well then I agree that multi-million dollar settlements are far too much.
We should be rolling that money into resources and pay for the people who are currently charged with keeping our asses safe in this war.
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kuru
'dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire.'
-robert frost
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| Post Number: 12
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Pravus Angelus
Codito Ergo Sum
Group: Members
Posts: 81
Joined: May 2002
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Posted on: Jun. 07 2002,04:52 |
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I guess I get to be the one to take a lone, highly flamed stand.
The military does not deserve more funding and by god people in the military do not deserve more pay.
First, on funding. The military has got to be the single least efficient organization on the face of the earth. Virtually every training exercise military organizations engage in, they use too much stuff. Ammo's a great example. Companys frequently request far more ammo than they need, just to be on the safe side. However, they always expend all of it, so they can report that such and such a training exercise (say, 4 days of MOUT) required so many rounds to justify requesting the same amount next time. It's not uncommon at all on the last day of a training evolution (why they call it that is beyond me) to fire off a few hundred rounds just for the sake of getting rid of it (another reason for this is ammo expenditure reports are a pain in the ass when you have to return live or jacked up ammo. It's a lot easier to just return dunnage (sp?), and staff are very often quite lazy).
A lot of screwups happen because of terrible communication. Communication problems that could easily be fixed by outsourcing a lot of the administrative work to competent, civilian personnel, where you allow the free market to take over. Obviously you can't outsource intel and the like, but the day-to-day requirements of running a base like Camp Pendleton are far better handled by companies like CBRE than military personnel. Same goes for IT.
Second, on pay. Here's the scam... military people do not get paid a lot, it's true. But they have far fewer expenses (free medical & dental for example), and there're some great scams for making a ton of tax free cash in the military, and they take advantage of it. For instance, an activated reserve unit gets Basic allowance for housing (BAH), based soley on pay grade and zip code. All you have to do is produce a lease agreement dated prior to mobilization (this can be with your parents or anybody else). The BAH you receive has nothing to do with the amount on your lease agreement. So, one of the many things your tax dollars is paying for, is for someone from an expensive area (based on zip code) to get from $800-$1400 a month for having a lease agreement of $200/month with his/her parents. This is not a joke, I know people who are doing this right now.
There're a bunch more examples, like per diem, but the bottom line is military people can (and do) scam the system for a fair chunk of tax free money. Plus, just about everywhere near a military base offers some very significant military discounts. People in the military aren't on food stamps, although it's not too hard to distore the information to make it look like they are. If you're comparing your gross yearly income with the gross yearly base pay of a military member, then you're not even coming close to seeing who gets more money.
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"Lately, the only thing keeping me from being a serial killer is my distaste for manual labor"
--Dilbert
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| Post Number: 13
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Wiley
©0®ÞØ®4+3 whØ®3
Group: Members
Posts: 1268
Joined: Oct. 2001
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Posted on: Jun. 08 2002,06:49 |
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I basically agree that military personnel shouldn't get paid more money, but for a different reason.
My opinion is based on the fact that they were told how much they would be getting paid before they enlisted. So they are getting what they expected to be getting. How could you somehow expect to get more after you've signed your life away? I have the same opinion about people who are not smart enough to negotiate salary before starting a job and wait for their first review to try and bump up their salary ...it's a bit late. Bitch about it all you want ...you have no power to negotiate
If some of you want to make it better for our boys in uniform then start a campaign to keep deadbeats who will take any offer Uncle Sam throws at them out of the service. Pass out flyers outside the recruiter's office ...of course this will require work and we all know that liberals like to talk about injustice and not really do anything about it. 
Edit: I knew I had written this before ...oh well ...here it is again.
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There's a sucker born every minute ...but swallowers are hard to find.
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| Post Number: 14
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^Evil_Matt^
FNG
Group: Members
Posts: 23
Joined: Jun. 2002
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Posted on: Jun. 08 2002,14:24 |
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Congress (that's American parliment, right?) passing their own pay-
wait a sec... politicians corrupt?!? Never!!
In Australia, there are a few notable cases of corruption as of late. You've got the minister who gave his free phone card code to his son, which then passed it around to his friends, which eventually rang up a total of around $50 000. Or the MP who was convicted of fraud and bribery, but will walk away with a gold travel pass giving him lifetime free domestic train, bus & plane travel. Or finally, the minister for medicine who, after aproving a multi-million dollar headquaters for a medical union, left government a few months later for a high-ranking job in it - and kept on using his government email for 4 months out of office.
and we trust our country to these people??
In their defence, about a month ago i went to this youth politics forum where reps from all types of governments where there (local, state, federal, union) and most of them seemed honestly good. Except this one guy, who i overheard telling someone how to win pre-selection (rep. a political party in an election) the easy way.
-matt
Edited by ^Evil_Matt^ on Jan. 01 1970,01:00
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Never criticise a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes. Then, if he doesn't like it, it doesn't matter because you're a mile away and you have his shoes.
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| Post Number: 15
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CaptainEO
f(t)
Group: Members
Posts: 56
Joined: May 2001
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Posted on: Jun. 12 2002,05:42 |
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| Quote (Pravus Angelus @ 06 June 2002,20:52) | | Virtually every training exercise military organizations engage in, they use too much stuff. Ammo's a great example. Companys frequently request far more ammo than they need, just to be on the safe side... |
Right on, Pravus... What really gets me is that due to an executive order put in place by former Pres. Clinton, the US military is not allowed to recover costs by selling surplus ammo to civilians. So every year the military ends up burning millions of perfectly good rounds... (and this stuff ain't cheap either - 5.56mm cartridges for M16s are 15-20 cents/round, and it goes up from there...). I'm not saying for sure they'd be able to sell off all unused ammo, but certainly sales could generate enough money to do something useful (enhance training, recruiting, pay for healtheir school lunches, whatever)... Plus I could be contributing to the US economy instead of sending my $$$ overseas for South Afrian or Russian surplus ammo...
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| Post Number: 16
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veistran
We don't listen to people that don't like us.
Group: Members
Posts: 967
Joined: May 2000
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Posted on: Jun. 12 2002,08:38 |
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they also shoot it off because they don't want to have to lug it back with them. 
anyway, yes the millitary has a lot of beaurocracy, for a good laugh HBO did a film about the Bradley called I believe "The Pentagon Wars." Really funny about all the beaurocracy surrounding the development of weapons in the millitary. It's funny but sad at the same time since so much of it is true.
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V|-
"Headed down the hard way
Concrete battleground
Urban monkey warfare
Sabotage underground camouflage"
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