A Veteran’s Day Message From Your Sponsor …

For those veterans in the audience, Happy Veteran’s Day 2017. Veteran’s Day in the U.S. is celebrated on 11 November, which in many other parts of the world is celebrated as Remembrance Day or Armistice Day. While originally designed to commemorate the sacrifice of those who served in, and the devastation caused by, World War I; there are nuanced differences in how the holiday is marked presently. The most obvious difference in the U.S. is that Veteran’s Day is not designed to celebrate those who died (that’s what we call Memorial Day), but those who currently serve and formerly served in the military. It’s meant to provide the nation an opportunity to pause, be thankful for, and engage with its veterans.

Given that less than 1% of the U.S. population currently serves in the military, and as little as 9% have previously served; a holiday like Veteran’s Day provides a rare but important mechanism for renewing the Nation’s commitment to both its current and former military members. Conversely, it also provides those in the U.S. military the opportunity to connect with and renew their commitment to the populace it protects and the democratically elected civilian-run system which guides it. It’s most appropriate to thank a veteran for their service on Veteran’s Day.

Controversially, perhaps, I believe it’s less appropriate to thank current serving members for their service outside of Veteran’s Day. Not that I believe it’s wrong to thank service members on all occasions outside of Veteran’s Day. There might be plenty of good reasons from the ultra-personal to the ultra-obvious for a person to do so. But, I believe as a U.S. citizen you shouldn’t feel pressured into thanking service members simply because you think it’s the required thing to do, or because you believe we require it from you. You shouldn’t and we don’t. It’s neither healthy for a democracy’s citizens to feel pressured into supporting its military blindly, nor is it healthy for a democracy’s military to believe your thanks is some sort of right to be demanded from its citizenry.

“Thanks” should be genuine and not built off some misinformed interpretation of what it means to be patriotic, or a mistaken belief that your military requires it from its citizens. Furthermore, while your thanks is appreciated, your obligation as a voting citizen runs deeper than simply thanking service members. We are, after all, a military 16 years into the Nation’s longest conflict. We are overseen and run by civilians appointed by the President and the Congress. Your tax money pays our salaries. Your elected officials decide if and when we go to war. The constitution we swear to uphold and defend provides all us the liberties we enjoy and love. Thus, we are your military. As a result, I believe it’s important that taxpayers and voters engage at a more intimate level with the military than what a simple “thank you” conveys.

In that vein, I pulled the following story out of the Grumpus Maximus historic annals to provide you just that opportunity to engage more intimately with one military member. Given that this is a personal finance blog, I kept it related to my experience with the interplay between remuneration, service, and the issue of “thanks”. You might think the three have nothing in common, but my experience will hopefully change your mind.

Flummox Maximus

In the summer of 2015, I conducted my first phone-call interview with Jill Schlessinger for her radio show and podcast Jill on Money using one of my many noms de guerre. It was an innocuous enough interview based on a question about my stock to bond ratio. Of course, as she always does prior to offering her financial advice she asked about my background and family circumstances in order to obtain a more rounded picture of where I was in life. I told her I was in the military during the interview, and at the end, she went to thank me for my service.

I anticipated the sentiment and had my standard line prepared for whenever anyone thanked me for my service: “Please don’t thank me, call your congressperson or senator and engage them in a discussion on whether or not we should be in Afghanistan”. Since returning from Afghanistan in April 2013 it was my go-to line. I considered it my small way of reminding people that U.S. servicemen and women were still in Afghanistan and that there was more they could do than simply thanking me for my service. However, I hadn’t used the line much since taking orders to Europe, so I was a little rusty in employing it.

Thus, I was caught off guard when Jill stopped herself. Instead of thanking me, she asked me if I was OK with being thanked for my service. The question flummoxed me for a moment but eventually, I told her my standard line whenever anyone thanked me was to say, “I would rather you call your representative or senators and engage them in a conversation about the appropriate use of U.S. military force in the world.”. Or something to that effect. When we ended the phone call, she sounded skeptical about my answer.

 

Post Game Analysis

I don’t hold Jill’s skepticism against her. It wasn’t a particularly eloquent answer on my part, and I didn’t convey my thoughts well. Most importantly though, I didn’t answer her question. I don’t know why I didn’t answer it. I’ve always considered myself a no-nonsense kind of guy, and am often accused of being honest to a fault. In fact, Mrs. Grumpus often states I could never be a diplomat because I lack both subtlety and restraint when answering her questions honestly.

However, for once in my life I decided to exercise both subtlety and restraint. Perhaps I felt a personal finance show was neither the time nor the place to start a larger discussion on the state of civil-relations in the U.S.  Alternatively, maybe I just wasn’t prepared for Jill’s slightly off angle question. Whatever the reason, my deficient answer never sat well me.

In hindsight, I could’ve engaged in an intelligent discussion from an economic and personal finance point view about why Americans feel compelled to thank their service men and women. We all know what they say about hindsight though.  Yet, since I now write a personal finance blog I’ve provided myself a platform to correct my sin of omission with Jill.  Plus, I can place that answer in the same context in which the original opportunity presented itself.

Obviously, my small blog doesn’t possess the same national platform as Jill on Money. However, at a time when our country is about to debate taxes, where they go, and what they’re spent on; I couldn’t have chosen a more opportune time to address an issue about remuneration, service and “thanks”. So with all of that, below is an approximation of what I should’ve said to Jill those few years ago now that I’ve had time to think about it. One point of clarification, I wrote it as if I was asked the question today rather than 2015 since I wanted to include the most up-to-date information available.

What I Should Have Said to Jill

Thank you for asking Jill. That’s an insightful question. I don’t wish to offend anyone, but the truth is that I am not OK with people thanking me for my service. In fact, I haven’t been OK with it since at least 2009, maybe even before that. More importantly, if you are a U.S. citizen, and not in the military, I don’t think you should be OK with feeling pressured into thanking me for my service either. This is a personal belief based on numerous lessons learned.  However, since this is a personal finance radio show and podcast, I’d like to base my argument on some financial and economic-related points.

First of all, in many respects, I am terribly well compensated for what I do. That’s not surprising given that Department of Defense’s personnel costs have risen by over 50% in real terms since 2001 alone. As of 2017, an officer at my rank with my length of service makes $102,780 annually in what is called Base Pay (i.e. taxable salary). I will be further reimbursed approximately $64,548 this year in allowances for housing, food, and cost of living expenses based on the fact that I am stationed in Hawaii. If I was stationed someplace else that later total would adjust up or down according to the local area’s housing and cost of living expenses. It’s important to note that the $64.5K isn’t taxed either, as allowances are not considered taxable income.

Thus, the total monetary remuneration for my service in 2017 will be approximately $168K. It doesn’t end there either, as I can expect regular annual pay raises based on inflation and raises every two years due to time in service. Let’s not forget earned rank promotions which come with significant bumps in salary too. While all of this information is available to the public, I have a feeling this will be first heard by many of your listeners.

Of course, each rank and career path has a different level of compensation. As an officer with a fair amount of seniority, my pay is not typical of a large majority of personnel in the military. Still, I would encourage anyone interested in military pay to look at the military pay charts and other websites where this information resides in order to inform themselves as to where a lot of our nation’s tax dollars go. I would be interested to know if your listeners believe they get good value for money based on what else I have to say.

To put my monetary remuneration into perspective, according to the U.S. Census Bureau median U.S. household income was $59,039 in 2016. It’s also worth noting that Caucasian head of household (HOH) median income was $61,858, and the median income for HOHs in my age category was $74,481. Therefore, my $168K stands at nearly triple the first two categories, and well over double the average of the final category … and that’s before healthcare is factored in. Should I be so lucky to serve until my desired retirement date of 21 years, my pension alone will likely match or exceed the median household income in the U.S.

Since I mentioned healthcare, your listeners should know that military members receive numerous non-monetary benefits such as the only truly universal form of healthcare in the U.S. called TRICARE. TRICARE covers nearly all medical expenses for both the service member and each dependent of that service member. For military members, dental is fully covered, and we only pay small amounts through a government subsidized program to cover our dependents. Given the current state of healthcare in the U.S., I believe it’s almost impossible to place an accurate dollar figure on the service TRICARE and our dental program provides, but needless to say for a family of four, it’s not cheap.

For any U.S. taxpayer hearing (or reading) this for the first time, I hope that my annual salary and benefits seem like a lot of money. I believe it is. I am able to provide well for my family while saving an average 30% to 40% annually for retirement and the future. No one in my family wants for anything unless it is an active decision to delay gratitude. We own property in Southern California. We travel to great locations. Our net worth is healthy. Without a doubt, military service afforded me the opportunity to accumulate wealth and be successful on any scale one might imagine. Granted, a lot of that is of my own making through active decisions like saving and investing. Many people in the military don’t make the same decisions. Yet, I’ve done nothing outside the ordinary. Anyone with my amount of service at my pay grade could’ve easily done the same or better.

Now, there’s a reason why military pay is so different than civilian pay, and that’s because military life isn’t like civilian life. In order to obtain a complete picture then, we need to look at the other side of the coin and examine my career. At one point early in my career, I was intrinsically motivated by ideas like service and sacrifice for one’s country. The pay and benefits seemed like icing on top of the cake. However, that intrinsic naivety faded throughout my 18 years of service.

Over 18 years I deployed numerous times to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Arabian Peninsula. I spent two years living in an Arab country. I had a friend killed; was nearly killed myself; deployed only days after my wife miscarried; and missed numerous birthdays, holidays, funerals, and other of life’s events. My family and I have moved five times in those intervening years, three of which were international, and two of which were cross-country moves. With all of these events and deployments came the soul-sucking stress that is life in a wartime military. It should come as no surprise that some of these events led to my PTS.

I don’t want to paint too dark a picture though because I believe my career has proven easier than most. For instance, I’ve never been shot at, blown up by an IED, or wounded in combat. While I’ve certainly participated in operations where my work directly resulted in the deaths of the enemy, I’ve fortunately never had to kill anyone face-to-face. All of this obviously ignores the positive events from my career which occurred throughout the same time frame. I met my wife while living in that aforementioned Arab country. We had two children, one of which was born overseas. I traveled to parts of the world I never held hope of visiting otherwise and surfed in many of those places! I participated in world-changing events and exercised my intellect and education in ways previously unimaginable.

Finally, and most importantly, I had the privilege to serve with and lead some of the finest people our country could ever hope to produce. I forged bonds of friendship and camaraderie that no amount of time or events could ever break. When I finally hang up my uniform, it will be this aspect of military life I miss the most.

I believe it’s also important to point out that I volunteered for all of this: the good and the bad. No one held a gun to my head, a judge didn’t present me the choice of the military or jail, and I was not drafted. In fact, no one in the U.S. military today is drafted because the U.S. military is an all-volunteer force. Furthermore, after my initial four-year commitment, I was under no obligation to stay in the military. In the early years, I stayed because I enjoyed the work, the benefits, and felt like my service meant something. In my later years that call to service faded.

Yet, I am still serving and collecting that paycheck with an eye on that pension. That decision to stay has not come without a lot of soul-searching and hand-wringing as I’ve cataloged on other parts of my blog. However, once I added up all the good, and subtracted the bad, I ultimately made the call that it was worth it to stay, collect that paycheck, and earn that pension. That was obviously my decision to make, and I based it on what was best for me and my family. I neither deserve nor expect the thanks of our Nation for any of those decisions.

Ultimately what I am trying to convey is that if your “thanks” is somehow contingent upon the belief that I am not well remunerated for my service, then you may want to examine that belief and conduct some further research. As outlined above, I don’t feel short-changed by my salary or additional benefits. Granted, no amount of compensation could ever rectify some of the events from my career. Then again no amount of “thank you’s” would either.

Of course, I don’t speak for everyone in the U.S. military. As stated above, for a military that’s been continuously at war for 16 years, my career has not been nearly as hard as many, if not most, of my peer group. Despite the additional hardships those personnel may have experienced though, the ability to make the same (or better) money choices as mine, means that many currently serving members will be secure financially for the rest of their lives. In my opinion, that is “thanks” enough.

Thank you again Jill for this opportunity to discuss an important topic.

Let’s Continue This Discussion

I’ll be the first to admit my opinion is probably a minority opinion held by personnel currently serving in the military.  That’s OK, everyone is entitled to their opinion based on their experience. However, at some point in the future, I believe it would be worthwhile to engage in a discussion on value for money when it comes to America’s military.  At a time when issues like healthcare, Social Security, education and infrastructure all have legitimate claims to the Nation’s tax dollars; I view military remuneration and the budget that supports it as a fair topic to examine and question.  Until then I would ask everyone to engage with the veterans around them. Talk to them, see what’s on their mind. You might be surprised where the conversation leads. Happy Veteran’s Day and a sincere Thank You from this veteran to all the veterans who read this.