Yeah, that what he said – “lavish”. David Wood at Huffington Post wrote today that it’s a cryin’-ass shame that military pay has caught up with civilian pay. The above title of my post was taken from what Wood’s post was titled before they changed it to be less inflammatory.
But, basically, Wood, who has never been in the military, by the way – he’s a Quaker and a conscientious objector – says that the last two defense secretaries warned that paying an armed force what it’s worth is dangerous. Of course, those last two defense secretaries both served under this president. The last one, Panetta, didn’t mind spending DoD’s money to fly his command post to California every weekend irrespective of the costs.
Base pay and housing allowance boosts the income of an Army master sergeant with 10 years of service, living at Fort Drum, N.Y., to $84,666.48 a year, according to the current Pentagon pay tables. This sergeant would pay a tax rate of 15 percent, a $6,417.40 tax advantage over civilians.
An Army captain with six years of service with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, earns $85,330.80 a year in pay and housing allowance — not counting bonuses, tax-free danger pay for service in a war zone and other benefits. A brigadier (one-star) general at Fort Drum, with 16 years of service, is earning $131,652 a year plus a housing allowance of $2,247 per month.
Now, think about it for a minute – I’ve lived at Fort Drum and I know what housing is available there – it’s not like these guys are living in McMansions. Does Wood think the Army should pay military members less than what their housing costs? Or should they just shut off all housing allowances? And what’s lavish about paying for living costs?
When I left the Army as an infantry platoon sergeant, I was responsible for $8 million worth of equipment and deploying with more firepower than a World War II infantry battalion – what’s that worth? Probably more than the $25,000 I was being paid at the time.
I hate to say ‘I told you so’, but I did back in 2008.
Thanks to ROS for the link.
What a tool. Yes, you fool, reduce the pay of the greatest military force in the world; that’ll win wars for sure.
As opposed to the parasites who do absolutely nothing other than to breath and breed who live quite large on our dime?
Typical leftist, non-serving POG.
I imagine that soldier’s wages match up pretty good with those of a non-serving slimeball, babbling about that which he knows nothing about.
Anyone here ever meet an E-8 with just 10 years in?
This guy is a doofus. How many ten year master sergeants and sixteen year brigadier generals really exist?
@3: Hell, we’ve had E-9’s around here with 10 years in.
As for this buttmunch; fuck him.
He’s a Quaker and a conshi?
Oh, hell, reinstate the draft. Make him live with the people he’s picking on for a while.
What lavish benefits? I didn’t have any. I scraped by. Great Lakes was the only base where there was on-base housing for me, at the WAVES’ barracks.
Master Sergeant after 10 years? Brigadier General in 16?
On what fucking planet?
Oh, and when I was an E-6 (married, in Los Angeles) making the righteous amount of $2800/month, of which over $1000/month went towards rent in a 1-bedroom, 1-bathroom, 600 square foot apartment with ONE parking spot, was I overpaid then, Davie?
Better yet, I put it somewhere else here, and if we paid E-1’s minimum wage, and scaled base pay for the other ranks accordingly, in today’s dollars, an E-6 over 12 (which is what I was when I got out) would be making just under $17/hour now. Pretty shitty compared to my hourly rate now.
HOWEVER, now put me on a boat in the middle of nowhere, 24/7, for 60 days, and OT rules apply, etc.
I guaran-fucking-TEE that I’d be making a shitload more than I do now, which is FAR in excess of the $85K the Master Sergeant was making.
Shove it up your ass, Davey–we pay our service members a fucking pittance for the shit they have to endure. Maybe if you spent a little time in their boots that little fucking light over your head might go on.
Anyone here ever meet an E-8 with just 10 years in?
ONE. Made Senior Chief just before he hit 10. Made Master Chief when he hit 14 years. But believe me, he was the exception, not the rule.
“Lavish living” … who said that … Huffington Post?
Never mind!
Master Chief–hell, I bet he’d be whining about the living conditions in the Goat Locker before the end of the second day underway.
God help us if the COB made him “hot rack.”
His Bio from Huffingpaintfumes Post:
Reads like a bad war novel!
Wood has been a journalist since 1970, a staff correspondent successively for Time Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Newhouse News Service, The Baltimore Sun and Politics Daily. A birthright Quaker and former conscientious objector, he covers military issues, foreign affairs and combat operations. His 10-part series on the severely wounded of Iraq and Afghanistan won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.
For four years (1977-1980), he covered guerrilla wars in Africa as Time Magazine’s Nairobi bureau chief. A Washington-based correspondent since 1980, Mr. Wood has covered national security issues at the White House, Pentagon and State Department, and has reported on conflict from Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Central America.
During the Cold War he reported from Russia and China, patrolled the inter-German border with American troops on one side and visited a Soviet motorized rifle regiment across the border in East Germany. He reported from Nicaragua during the Sandinista-Contra conflict, and covered the overthrow of President Marcos in the Philippines and the war in Bosnia before and during the U.S. military intervention in 1995. He has written extensively about international conflict resolution, peacekeeping and the post-war rebuilding of civil societies.
He has accompanied U.S. military units in the field many times, both on domestic and overseas training maneuvers and in Desert Storm, the Persian Gulf tanker war, the interventions in Panama, Somalia and Haiti, peacekeeping missions in the Balkans and combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was embedded with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Somalia, and the 10th Mountain and 101st Airborne Division units in Afghanistan in 2002. In four trips to Iraq he has embedded with numerous units including the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment’s 2nd Squadron in East Baghdad, the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines in al-Anbar and the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing flying resupply missions across Iraq.
In five trips to Afghanistan since January 2002, he has lived and worked with the 10th Mountain and 101st Airborne Divisions, the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, the 82nd Airborne Division’s special troops battalion, the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry, in RC-East and, most recently, with the 10th Mountain Division’s 1st Brigade in Kunduz, Faryab and Kandahar provinces.
He has flown on B-52 and B-1 bombers, slogged through Army Ranger School, accompanied Rangers on night airborne maneuvers and Marines on amphibious and air assault operations, flown off aircraft carriers and sailed on battleships, cruisers, minesweepers and amphibs, and has submerged aboard attack and strategic missile submarines.
He has been scared much of his professional life.
Wood has written widely across the span of national security issues, from nuclear deterrence theory to combat stress, domestic terrorism, military technology and doctrine, and scarce resources and demographic shifts as causes of instability.
In 1992-1993 he spent a year with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, including three months of ground operations in Somalia. His account of that experience, A Sense of Values, was published by Andrews & McMeel in 1994.
A Pulitzer Prize finalist, he has won the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Defense Reporting and other national awards. He has appeared on CNN, CSPAN, the PBS News Hour, WUSA , RTV and the BBC, and is a regular guest on National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm Show. He has lectured at the U.S. Army Eisenhower Fellows Conference , the Marine Staff College, the Joint Forces Staff College and Temple University.
Mr. Wood was raised as a pacifist and in 1968 completed two years of civilian service in lieu of military duty. He has three grown children and two stepchildren and lives outside Washington DC. He runs and bicycles for sport and goes to climb high mountains when possible.
Since the guy never served somebody should inform him the vast majority of the military doesn’t consist of e8’s, captains, and generals. Is the military supposed to get paid the same rate as liberal arts degree baristas at Starbucks? If so the military is going to need more pay increases.
“For more than a decade, Congress and the Pentagon have lavished money on the nation’s 1.3 million active-duty troops and their families.”
The author (especially one such as Woods) controls the text and the quote is his opening line. Control over a title belongs to an editor. That explains why the title was altered. Woods’ line incenses me beyond words. Lavished money on the troops AND THEIR FAMILIES? He wrote it. He owns it. Screw him.
Oh, my. According to his standards, since I have flown in B-25’s, I am an expert on WWII!!
Who knew!
Dear David,
Care to trade paychecks?
Another damn thing. Evidently the Quakers have no problem angering people and causing them angst if it’s for a cause they personally favor. I guess this a sample of Quaker love. Sorry to lump them all together but Woods does seem to be their spokesman since he never misses an opportuity to point out he’s a Quaker. Besides, he doesn’t have a problem lumping all of our troops and their families together as recipoients of lavish spending. Did I say Screw Him already?
Do generals get to live off post? I seem to recall that key personnel were required to live on base. If so, he would not receive housing allowance.
Lavish Living?
$1.4 billion per year for the occupants of the White House.
Why doesn’t this concerned “journalist” (aka Hack), quote these numbers?
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/03/11/obamas-cost-of-living-in-the-white-house-14-billion-a-year-n1530802
A sign of things to come for future retirees? Put the military back on food stamps, we spend too much on the military machine. That Defense budget could be pared down to feed more hungry people. Bla bla bla.
(sarcasm key stuck)
I guess 19,000 a year for a Private E-2 is pretty lavish? Or my E-6 pay? Give me a break Wood, your Bio says that you have pretty much been a Military groupie, leeching of of the heroics of others for your Pulitzer Prize. For someone who has seen so much he seems to recall very little.
@14 OWB, where did you fly in the B-25 at? As a high school kid I used to work at the Planes of Fame in Chino, CA and we had one. Best ride I got was in a SBD-5 Dauntless (formerly an A-24) on my birthday.
David Wood? He can eat a bowl of dicks.
It sounds like he’s been reading those propaganda letters we used to get one a year trying to get us to reenlist, telling us how much our pay and benefits “translated” to civilian benefits. I was a Sgt in 1984 living in an open barracks built in the 1960s and I was told I was “making” 55,000 bucks a year in pay and benefits. I think I made about 14,000. That means the 2 visits I’g get a year to get stuck by a needle, my shitty garage style barracks I shared with 60 other guys and the chow hall that served only 19 crappy meals a week was worth 41,000 bucks a year.
Lavish.. Wait what? I am gonna kill my husband, because from what I saw of his paycheck; he had to have had another family taking the rest of the “lavish” money he was supposedly getting..
“lavished money”
With all the responsibility an E8 has that’s not all that lavish, it’s still about $10 grand less than two of the White House Calligraphers, of course the E8 probably won’t get injured with a pointy pen while inking some invitations for the President….so maybe it’s fair after all…./sarc
@ 21 … “bowls of dicks”
Can I use that at my next management meeting?
Sure, if you don’t mind being shown the door by security right after.
“…decades of lavish benefits…”
Oh, look! A talking pile of dogsh*t. How quaint.
PN: Your comment reminds me of a scene in a Jerry Lewis movie when he says, “Oh, ain’t that quaint.” He is immediately corrected by another who says, “That’s ISN’T!” And Lewis responds, “Oh, isn’t that quisnt.”
The fucking White House calligrapher makes nearly a hundred grand a year…for writing shit on paper…and they have a staff of two others who are making roughly $80k as well. Three hundred grand could buy you one fucking awesome laser printer and a shitload of toner cartridges, but I guess that’s not as sexy as going after people who are willing to die for a living.
Where was David Wood when I was trying to eat my frozen spaghetti C-ration in a West German forest in the middle of Winter? When my plastic spoon broke before the first bite, I used my bayonet to chip out pieces to eat. At the time, my base pay was about $500 a month BEFORE taxes with no BAQ, BAS, Jump Pay or any other pay supplement. Oddly enough, I was enjoying “lavish benefits” without even knowing it. That dude pisses me off.
Maybe this was the tittle of his new fiction book, he is working on? You know the type alternate history…
E-8 in ten years? Good example…that covers almost nobody in the military. BG in 16? Is that even possible?
@29 I saw an article where the frickin WH dog trainer makes $102k a year PART TIME. Don’t know how true it is, but from this WH; it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
He’s a bald guy with a moustache and a pretend-1000 inch stare (just to let you know he means bidness).
He’s the 5th most idiotic man in the world.
As aprotest, I will now refuse to consume Quaker Oats products. Hit him in the wallet. Unfortunately, I just consumed a Quaker Oats granola bar, and have two spares in my desk drawer, and I am hungrier than an Ethiopian at Karen Carpenter concert. But once thsoe two are gone, the boycott is on!
Just stay away from the comment section.. Some of them are even worse than the article. Huffington Post is a cesspool.
Since when was combat pay a benefit. $250 a month for being shot at and blown up doesn’t strike me as very beneficial
I didn’t realise that living in the cockroach infested barracks that were built in 1917 on Schofield Barracks was living the good life.
At the risk of stating something that’s unpopular but necessary: even though this guy was obnoxious, he’s pointing out one of the proverbial “elephants in the room” that no one wants to think about.
DoD’s military personnel costs are rising annually faster than inflation, and have been for some time. (For those who don’t realize it – these costs do not include the cost of DoD civilian employees. DoD civilian salaries are funded from a different source and have not risen anywhere near as much over the last 12 years.)
We’re also not talking about a very small part of the DoD budget, either. People in uniform full-time make up about 62% of the DoD Federal workforce (there are 1.3 million people in uniform and about 800k civilian employees). DoD’s military personnel costs in fiscal 2013 are projectd at $153.3 billion. Approx $130 billion will go for personnel on active duty; about $10.9 billion for Reserve personnel costs; and approx $12.4 billion will go for National Guard personnel costs.
http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2013/fy2013_m1.pdf
Here’s the problem: DoD needs money for many things besides military salaries. And the reality is that the DoD budget isn’t going to get substantially bigger during the next few years. IMO we’ll be lucky to see the DoD budget keep pace with inflation. I’m guessing it may well shrink in real terms (including inflation) if not current-year dollar terms over the next few years. And that’s not very likely to change. The Federal government is freaking BD, financially – it’s borrowing more than 1/3 of each dollar it spends today.
Faced with this situation, DoD has a few choices, all of which are bad:
1. Allow personnel costs to continue to grow more rapidly than inflation, but cut the size of the force dramatically.
2. Allow personnel costs to continue to grow more rapidly than inflation, but cut other activities (training, spare parts, fuel, maintenance). We saw this result of doing this at least once before – during the post-Vietnam and Carter years. It was called a “hollow force”.
3. Allow personnel costs to continue to grow more rapidly than inflation, but ax most or all modernization. Yeah, that works – for a while. But equipment eventually wears out, and adversaries don’t necessarily quit developing better stuff. How old are some of our planes/ships/tanks today?
4. Limit the growth of personnel costs. That means less annual growth in personnel costs, personnel cutbacks, or a combination of both.
5. Some combination of some/all of the above.
We’ve seen the beginning of these with the cutbacks to “quality of life” programs so far (TA, some others). Training and travel are similarly being cut back. So far military salaries haven’t been affected.
My guess is that we’re going to see option 5 – with “all” being the case. However, I’m reasonably sure that it’s going to get much worse than most want to imagine. I’m thinking we’re in for a few years of military pay raises that barely equal CPI, much less exceed it. We may well see longer tours at CONUS installations (to save some of the cost of PCS travel). I’m guessing we’ll see some degree of force reductions and program cutbacks too – and training/supplies/maintenance are going to get tight as hell again. But I don’t think we’ll see the uniformed military take it in the shorts quite like DoD civilian employees have since 2010 (no annual pay raise since Jan 2010).
When there simply isn’t the money to carry on as before, you have to adapt to the amount of money you have, or you close the doors. And I just don’t see Congress and this Administration cutting entitlement programs – which now spend at least 2.5x as much as DoD does – to increase the DoD budget.
@25 – be my guest. It oughtta raise some eyebrows.
yeah that’s right you get lavish benefits you bunch of ungrateful whiners. You get free on base parking and access to personal fitness trainers (I actually heard a dipshit politician say that). /sarc off/
@ #20: Oh, here and there! Been around old aeroplanes since being a wee tot.
“He runs and bicycles for sport and goes to climb high mountains when possible”. Holy shit, It’s our very own Joey, working undercover in D.C.?
Let’s not forget that this vaunted money to live in on post housing is retarded anyway. I pay 1500 for a cheesy 2 bedroom, while the private below me pays 1100, and the private with six kids lives in a town house mansion that just got built last year and pays 1100…
Would that sniveling little windbag like to tell me what a civilian Infantryman or Artillery Man makes these days?
Personally, I categorically reject so much as a dime’s worth of cuts that go to military pay and benefits and any other item, be it family support services, PX, or what have you, that accrues to our military and their families. I am not retired military. Aside from a spot of ground and a flag for my coffin, I’d say I’m done with whatever service-related benefit I might be entitled to receive. Thus, I have no vested interest in the promised cuts. Or do I? Nothing is possible without a society that is open to conduct business without a military to protect that society. I don’t fear foreign paratroopers dropping from the sky or tanks rolling across our borders from the south or north. I don’t fear because I know I am protected from those things by our military. My point is this: Because every damn thing we enjoy as a country is possible only with a strong military, preserving and enhancing our military should be job #1. But, evidently, it is not. Let the shit hit the fan. Let Puffy Pants touch off a run at South Korea and then let the idiots in Congress and the knucklehead in the White House have John Kerry work things out. Good luck with that. Okay, I’m done—except for one thing. Anyone know of a company that delivers bags of dicks. You know, like a florist does. I would like to send Quaker Woods a nice bouquet of dicks.
Why are you guys picking on Quaker Oats?
The Quakers are a group of religious pacifists. They have nothing to do with the Quaker Oats company.
It was started by Henry Crowell in 1901, when he bought the Quake Mill Company and three other grain milling companies. The company has no ties of any kind to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).
The Quaker Oats company has been part of the Pepsico family since 2001. The guy on the box is commonly known as “Larry” in the company. He’s also frequently mistaken for Ben Franklin, who was not (to my knowledge) a Quaker. Ben F. was, in fact, Episcopalian, like me.
Hack, not eating granola bars won’t affect anyone, or anything but your waisline and blood sugar. I don’t eat granola bars, either. I go for smoked almonds and raisins, and also those roasted pecans at the Renaissance Faire in the summer.
Geezo-pete, get a grip, will you, guys?
I wonder if they would be willing to switch the military to an hourly salary? You know pay the E-1s minimum wage with over time. Hahahahhaha!
Hey Sarge I can’t go out on patrol, my overtime isn’t approved.
Just Plain Jason@48, or they could just do what the contractors do, and drive up to the parking lot of Home Depot, or in this case, VFW, and pick up some day-combaters. Pay them under the table, and you don’t have to deal with filing all of that paperwork.