Retention Deficit

B
: positions, and fewer still in the media, know anybody in the enlisted
: ranks. It's also an easily supportable case, since all enlistees sign
: a contract that provides the government with the option of extending
: enlistment indefinitely. Objections from soldiers or airmen whose
: retirements are delayed can easily (and to some degree, accurately)
: be dismissed as the timeless griping of the enlisted. (Stop-loss also
: applies to officers.) The idea that such treatment has so far created

Of course, there is an even greater danger that lurks in the very
important 'contract' that military members sign. The US government can,
at any time and without prior notification, alter pay and benefits to include
eliminating them. The current military paradigm is centered on the idea that
the *worst* possible things is temporary pause in the increase of benefits.
If, however, the US runs short of money -- particularly in the context of a
weak economy that may bring more potential recruits -- there might be a
need/want to *reduce* military compensation levels.
The 'all volunteer' military means different things to different
people. To many, it means a military that operates on "market principles"
that include wages and benefits sometime going down in accord with supply
and demand, not always up. Others, however, take a more "union" approach
that military members "deserve" a certain level of pay and benefits, and
that market principles should not be applied.
One of the key ongoing struggles wrt the Navy is the 'deployment
pay' issue/fiasco. Congress passed the law, and the people stuck on long
deployments sure as heck want the money, but the executive branch doesn't
want to spend the money and the program is still not implemented (maybe
in a few years, say those resisting). This is a case over disagreement on
the raising of compensation -- you could imagine the screams if the government
ever tried to lower levels of compensation. As unlikely as such a track might
seem, it is something to seriously think about.

regards,
----------------------------------------------------------------

The most recent indignity comes with increasing public awareness of
the military's "stop-loss" program, in which service members can be
forced to stay in the service even after their contractual retirement
dates.
Gee, Mr. Bush (you F#CKING dumb****) see the result of your leadership?
(choke- he calls it leadership, actually it's NOT EVEN CLOSE).

After you've SCREWED the Vets and SCREWED the Military- I wonder why
retention and recruitment are at ALL-TIME LOWS? DUH!!!!!!!


Larry
AECS (AW/SW/MTS)
Disabled Combat Veteran
USN 'Retired'
Can't call it 'retired' when the Feds steal my 'retirement' check through
the Disabled Veterans Tax (how cute- they call it 'offset'. It's really just
theft!)

'Honorable service to my country now prevents me from feeding my family'

Thank you Bush! (Ooops- I meant **** YOU BUSH!)





"Anonymous" wrote in message
news:8DWQ13NG38002.7937268519@anonymous...
Stop-loss in a Volunteer State Tim Cavanaugh

A recruiter's lot is not a happy one. You spend all day hounding
teenagers to produce their misplaced divorce papers and juvenile
criminal records, scrounging up suitable jobs for mediocre ASVAB
scorers, hustling to get waivers for nearsighted volunteers. The
paperwork and lily-gilding would faze even the most meretricious real
estate agent, but you have no prospect of a big commission. Your
deskbound bosses and their media cheerleaders cook up far-flung
deployments that discourage all but the most foolhardy volunteers,
then expect you to answer for it when enlistments drop.

The most recent indignity comes with increasing public awareness of
the military's "stop-loss" program, in which service members can be
forced to stay in the service even after their contractual retirement
dates. If you serve in or know anybody who serves in the reserves or
regular military, you've undoubtedly heard a few stop-loss horror
tales. The current level of scrutiny of this practice, however, seems
to have been sparked by a few stories in the Washington Post
detailing how stop-loss orders are affecting American soldiers in
Iraq and elsewhere. (Maybe the Graham family is trying to prop up the
illusion of an intense Time/Newsweek rivalry by hitting back at
Time's selection of "The American Soldier" as its Person of the Year.)

Other media have followed. Stop-loss angles now color the
announcement that the U.S. Army is offering $10,000 re-enlistment
bonuses to soldiers in Iraq. Proponents of the overstretched military
argument, opponents of the Iraq war, and even mass conscription
advocates can all find some fuel in the military's involuntary
service requirements. "U.S. Army gives new meaning to 'slavery,'" is
how the indispensable Free-Market.net is characterizing the story
today.

But the real advantage of having stop-loss become a news story isn't
merely that it provides ample grandstanding opportunities (though it
does that). Rather, this is welcome news because it complicates one
of the sleazier pieties of foreign policy dialogue: that the armed
services are staffed entirely by willing volunteers.

Iraq war supporters who a few years back would have been justly
appalled at Madeleine Albright's comment about there being no point
in maintaining a splendid military if you don't use it are now quick
to stifle any dovish concerns for the welfare of America's fighting
forces. It's an easy case to make, since few in policy-making
positions, and fewer still in the media, know anybody in the enlisted
ranks. It's also an easily supportable case, since all enlistees sign
a contract that provides the government with the option of extending
enlistment indefinitely. Objections from soldiers or airmen whose
retirements are delayed can easily (and to some degree, accurately)
be dismissed as the timeless griping of the enlisted. (Stop-loss also
applies to officers.) The idea that such treatment has so far created
vast morale problems is a stretch.

But fairness demands we recognize another truth: If enlistment is a
voluntary process, it's also one of the zanier sales efforts in
contemporary American life. Enlistees are routinely kept in the dark
about a vast range of issues. These may not include the question of
whether you'll be killed (a possibility every volunteer is aware of),
but money and personal matters that (since, statistically speaking,
your chances of being killed or crippled are fairly low even in
Iraq), are in many ways more important: How much of your tiny pay
will be extracted to pay for the mandatory and nebulous life
insurance policy? If you have dependents, how much housing allowance
will you get? Could you lose that allowance if you're activated and
thus deemed no longer in need of it (a Catch-22 too complicated to
explain here)? How and under what circumstances can you be subjected
to a stop-loss order? And why do they keep telling you you'll learn
the answers to these questions once you get to Basic?

None of this excuses an enlistee's responsibility to know the rules
going in. But the government doesn't operate with the kind of
scrupulousness you'd find in, say, a used car salesman. For all the
public encomia to our troops and Veteran's Day platitudes about how
freedom isn't free, American service people get screwed hard, fast,
and often.

The neoliberal solution to this problem is simple and predictable:
Don't just screw a few people; screw everybody. In its Person of the
Year issue, Time revisits the debate over reviving the draft. The
discussion is worth reading. For the most part, opponents of mass
conscription (including frequent Reason contributor Doug Bandow)
argue that a draft would be wasteful and counterproductive.
Supporters are far more fanciful: Senator James Inhofe (R-OK),
allegedly a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
distinguishes himself by not putting forward a single argument based
on military necessity. (It's worth it, Inhofe believes, to instill
discipline in "today's youth.") Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), on the
other hand, is smart enough to have a machiavellian secret plan: He
wants to hamstring the Bush Administration by ensuring that even the
sons and daughters of the wealthy are called up in a draft that is
implemented "fairly" (that is, in a way no draft has ever been
implemented in the history of the world).

The odds of mass conscription returning still seem pretty slim, and
it's likely that military arguments will continue to be framed in the
context of an all-volunteer military. Except that, in a way, they're
not really all volunteers, or at least not eager volunteers. One of
the arguments against maintaining a large standing military is that
this creates an incentive to put the military to use. But lack of a
standing army didn't prevent the United States from a disastrous
folly like the War of 1812 or an imperial misdeed like the Spanish-
American War. In the former case, at least, the government was under
extraordinary pressure to keep up its war effort without burdening
the citizens. The problem today is that the priorities are reversed:
When a free nation can't maintain its foreign adventures with willing
volunteers, the rational solution should be to cut down on the
adventures, not to fudge the definition of "willing." Stop-loss may
not be the worst thing the government is doing to America's troops,
but anybody who is seriously trying to estimate the costs of the war
in Iraq should be paying close attention to it.


Tim Cavanaugh is Reason's Web editor.
==

Ar-Nold is a pigeon for the jooz.

-=-
This message was posted via two or more anonymous remailing services.

On Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:16:04 -0800, Larry
wrote:

The most recent indignity comes with increasing public awareness of
the military's "stop-loss" program, in which service members can be
forced to stay in the service even after their contractual retirement
dates.
Gee, Mr. Bush (you F#CKING dumb****) see the result of your leadership?
(choke- he calls it leadership, actually it's NOT EVEN CLOSE).

After you've SCREWED the Vets and SCREWED the Military- I wonder why
retention and recruitment are at ALL-TIME LOWS? DUH!!!!!!!

Hmm...first term retention is at 64%. Quoting CNP, "...the highest
reenlistment rates in the history of the U.S. Navy. In fact, in the
history of any service.� So sorry, Senior, try again next time



Larry
AECS (AW/SW/MTS)

/nit
Master Training Specialist isn't a warfare designator; it doesn't belong
in your signature.
/nit

Disabled Combat Veteran
USN 'Retired'
Can't call it 'retired' when the Feds steal my 'retirement' check through
the Disabled Veterans Tax (how cute- they call it 'offset'. It's really
just
theft!)

'Honorable service to my country now prevents me from feeding my family'

Thank you Bush! (Ooops- I meant **** YOU BUSH!)





"Anonymous" wrote in message
news:8DWQ13NG38002.7937268519@anonymous...
Stop-loss in a Volunteer State Tim Cavanaugh

A recruiter's lot is not a happy one. You spend all day hounding
teenagers to produce their misplaced divorce papers and juvenile
criminal records, scrounging up suitable jobs for mediocre ASVAB
scorers, hustling to get waivers for nearsighted volunteers. The
paperwork and lily-gilding would faze even the most meretricious real
estate agent, but you have no prospect of a big commission. Your
deskbound bosses and their media cheerleaders cook up far-flung
deployments that discourage all but the most foolhardy volunteers,
then expect you to answer for it when enlistments drop.

The most recent indignity comes with increasing public awareness of
the military's "stop-loss" program, in which service members can be
forced to stay in the service even after their contractual retirement
dates. If you serve in or know anybody who serves in the reserves or
regular military, you've undoubtedly heard a few stop-loss horror
tales. The current level of scrutiny of this practice, however, seems
to have been sparked by a few stories in the Washington Post
detailing how stop-loss orders are affecting American soldiers in
Iraq and elsewhere. (Maybe the Graham family is trying to prop up the
illusion of an intense Time/Newsweek rivalry by hitting back at
Time's selection of "The American Soldier" as its Person of the Year.)

Other media have followed. Stop-loss angles now color the
announcement that the U.S. Army is offering $10,000 re-enlistment
bonuses to soldiers in Iraq. Proponents of the overstretched military
argument, opponents of the Iraq war, and even mass conscription
advocates can all find some fuel in the military's involuntary
service requirements. "U.S. Army gives new meaning to 'slavery,'" is
how the indispensable Free-Market.net is characterizing the story
today.

But the real advantage of having stop-loss become a news story isn't
merely that it provides ample grandstanding opportunities (though it
does that). Rather, this is welcome news because it complicates one
of the sleazier pieties of foreign policy dialogue: that the armed
services are staffed entirely by willing volunteers.

Iraq war supporters who a few years back would have been justly
appalled at Madeleine Albright's comment about there being no point
in maintaining a splendid military if you don't use it are now quick
to stifle any dovish concerns for the welfare of America's fighting
forces. It's an easy case to make, since few in policy-making
positions, and fewer still in the media, know anybody in the enlisted
ranks. It's also an easily supportable case, since all enlistees sign
a contract that provides the government with the option of extending
enlistment indefinitely. Objections from soldiers or airmen whose
retirements are delayed can easily (and to some degree, accurately)
be dismissed as the timeless griping of the enlisted. (Stop-loss also
applies to officers.) The idea that such treatment has so far created
vast morale problems is a stretch.

But fairness demands we recognize another truth: If enlistment is a
voluntary process, it's also one of the zanier sales efforts in
contemporary American life. Enlistees are routinely kept in the dark
about a vast range of issues. These may not include the question of
whether you'll be killed (a possibility every volunteer is aware of),
but money and personal matters that (since, statistically speaking,
your chances of being killed or crippled are fairly low even in
Iraq), are in many ways more important: How much of your tiny pay
will be extracted to pay for the mandatory and nebulous life
insurance policy? If you have dependents, how much housing allowance
will you get? Could you lose that allowance if you're activated and
thus deemed no longer in need of it (a Catch-22 too complicated to
explain here)? How and under what circumstances can you be subjected
to a stop-loss order? And why do they keep telling you you'll learn
the answers to these questions once you get to Basic?

None of this excuses an enlistee's responsibility to know the rules
going in. But the government doesn't operate with the kind of
scrupulousness you'd find in, say, a used car salesman. For all the
public encomia to our troops and Veteran's Day platitudes about how
freedom isn't free, American service people get screwed hard, fast,
and often.

The neoliberal solution to this problem is simple and predictable:
Don't just screw a few people; screw everybody. In its Person of the
Year issue, Time revisits the debate over reviving the draft. The
discussion is worth reading. For the most part, opponents of mass
conscription (including frequent Reason contributor Doug Bandow)
argue that a draft would be wasteful and counterproductive.
Supporters are far more fanciful: Senator James Inhofe (R-OK),
allegedly a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
distinguishes himself by not putting forward a single argument based
on military necessity. (It's worth it, Inhofe believes, to instill
discipline in "today's youth.") Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), on the
other hand, is smart enough to have a machiavellian secret plan: He
wants to hamstring the Bush Administration by ensuring that even the
sons and daughters of the wealthy are called up in a draft that is
implemented "fairly" (that is, in a way no draft has ever been
implemented in the history of the world).

The odds of mass conscription returning still seem pretty slim, and
it's likely that military arguments will continue to be framed in the
context of an all-volunteer military. Except that, in a way, they're
not really all volunteers, or at least not eager volunteers. One of
the arguments against maintaining a large standing military is that
this creates an incentive to put the military to use. But lack of a
standing army didn't prevent the United States from a disastrous
folly like the War of 1812 or an imperial misdeed like the Spanish-
American War. In the former case, at least, the government was under
extraordinary pressure to keep up its war effort without burdening
the citizens. The problem today is that the priorities are reversed:
When a free nation can't maintain its foreign adventures with willing
volunteers, the rational solution should be to cut down on the
adventures, not to fudge the definition of "willing." Stop-loss may
not be the worst thing the government is doing to America's troops,
but anybody who is seriously trying to estimate the costs of the war
in Iraq should be paying close attention to it.


Tim Cavanaugh is Reason's Web editor.
==

Ar-Nold is a pigeon for the jooz.

-=-
This message was posted via two or more anonymous remailing services.






--
Christopher Horner

After you've SCREWED the Vets and SCREWED the Military

Uhh, I think you meant to type Clinton when you typed Bush. Bush has done an
admirable job trying to get Vets some of their health benefits back that
*Clinton* took away. As far as the current military goes, we're much happier
under this president (even in a more demanding time) than the last one.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"