PurpleheartOklahoma (scroll down)

The Bogus Case for Vesting in the military
MOAA 17Nov2011

November 10, 2011
By Col. Steve Strobridge, USAF-Ret.

One of the rationales given by top defense officials and others who have called for changes in the military retirement system is the need to be “fairer to people who leave before completing 20 years of service.”

Vesting is common in the private sector to allow an increasingly transient workforce to build retirement equity, they say, and the military system should be changed to do that for the 83 percent of servicemembers who leave short of serving a career.

Bullhockey.

There’s no comparison between military and civilian careers, and the last thing the military needs is a retirement system based on civilian norms.

Unlike corporate America, the services can’t go out and hire an infantryman, submariner, or fighter pilot with 10 years of experience, much less a senior commander.

They have to grow their own mid-level supervisors and top leaders, and they need powerful incentives to induce large numbers of high-quality people to compete for those positions, despite conditions of service most Americans won’t tolerate for even one term.

There are good reasons why 83 percent of entrants aren’t willing to stay for a military career, and the last thing the services need is to create another one.

Make no mistake, that’s what vesting would do: give servicemembers we need to stay for a career one more reason to leave.

Over the past 10 years, there’s one big reason why many mid-career servicemembers stayed to face a third or fourth combat deployment — the powerful pull of the 20-year retirement system. Without it, the past decade of wartime hardship would have broken the career force.

Most who make the “vesting fairness” argument know it’s a red herring to serve their real goal of civilianizing the military retirement system. And they’d fund the new exit payment by dramatically cutting retirement benefits for people who serve a multi-decade career.

Anyone who cuts benefits for those who serve and sacrifice longest to fund new payments to people who leave forfeits any claim to care about fairness, in MOAA’s book. They also embrace a perverse incentive that can only undermine long-term retention and readiness.

There’s only one argument on this issue that makes any sense.

That’s the concern raised by Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) during the military retirement hearing at which I testified in October — that the coming force drawdown will cause the services to separate many long-serving people who have experienced multiple deployments.

Scott is right that we owe more to those who would have pursued a career but will be denied that opportunity for budgetary reasons that are no fault of their own.

But the fix isn’t to change the retirement system to permanently undermine career retention incentives.

During the drawdown of the 1990s, Congress authorized early retirement for people in excess skills who had 15 to 19 years’ service. Career servicemembers with less than 15 years were offered substantial voluntary-separation incentives.

So why isn’t Congress considering those things now? Because they cost extra money, and Congress doesn’t want to spend more money — on military people or anybody else.

If the concern is to provide fair treatment to overstressed career servicemembers who have to be forced out in a drawdown, MOAA is fully on board.

But it’s Congress’ job to pony up extra money to do that.

Try to fund it by whacking retirement for those who serve and sacrifice longest (whether for the current or the future force), and you’ll have MOAA fighting you bitterly every step of the way.