Prologue

I’ll admit up front this article won’t be to everyone’s liking which probably isn’t a good way to start out a blog post if you want people to read it.  However, there’s a likelihood that some readers will get no more than a few paragraphs in, and question what the hell any of this has to do with Financial Independence (FI) or pensions.  They may even think all I’m trying to do is blow my own horn.  I’m not, but I could see how it might appear that way if you don’t stick around to the end.  Admittedly, I used this post as an opportunity to engage in some much-needed writing therapy.  One of my Docs told me it would help to write about events from my career which contributed to my PTS.  Thus, dealing with the topic of  “worth vs. worth it” gave me the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.  I’ll leave the determination of whether I successfully pulled it off up to you.

My One “No Shitter”

In the branch of the military I serve in, we have a tradition of telling truthful but over-the-top stories known as “No Shitters”.  That designation is based on the reaction of your audience, who typically question the veracity of said story with the colorful response of “No shit?”.  Alternatively, they might use “No bullshit?”.  Regardless, below is my one “No Shitter” worth telling.  It just so happens to have a loose theme germane to the financial topic of judging a thing’s worth, versus being “worth it”.  I’ve intentionally sanitized the events, locations, service branches, and names of participants in order protect them and myself from any potential fall out.  So if the story seems vague, that is why.

The Believer

In late summer 2009, I almost killed myself while on a mission to interdict extremist linked narcotics from the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area.  At the time I was in charge of a team of specialists that provided on site support for larger units conducting counter-narcotics and other types of interdiction missions.  It was a dream job for someone like me which included the challenges of leadership, a lot of arduous training, and the potential to get out from behind the desk and “into the field”.  This assignment embodied most of the reasons I joined the military, and at the time I was a big believer in the importance of the missions we supported.  I believed in it so much, I volunteered for that 2009 deployment, six months after returning home from my first.

Our typical support package consisted of two technical specialists that would embed into larger units already deployed and working in an area where an interdiction was likely.  These pairs of specialists were typically young E-4 through E-6s, 18 to 25 years old, men and women.  Occasionally my senior non-commissioned officer or I would work into the rotations to stagger the work load for our personnel.  My senior non-com and I had the same training as our specialists, and I was big on leading from the front.  We always had more missions than personnel, and by rotating-in, we provided them some rest and recuperation time at our base of operations.

My unit was a high-demand, low-density asset.  I worked hard with our higher headquarters (HHQ) to assign my personnel to units with a higher likelihood of requiring our skills, based on their area of operations.  Morale stayed high when real opportunities for work remained likely.  Occasionally, the stars would align allowing us to embed personnel with a specific unit, for a specific time, based on a specific piece of intelligence.  Everyone on the team liked these the missions best.  This is the type of mission I found myself supporting in late summer 2009.

It just so happened on the day the order came down, myself and a partially trained E-4 (who we will call “Bob” for the rest of the story) were the only two non-embedded team members.  Everyone else was already on assignment.  My HHQ made it clear that we would support the mission.  Given my belief in the importance of the mission, it wasn’t like I was going to say “no” anyway.  The only decision I had to make was whether I would take partially trained Bob with me.

What About Bob

Bob was a great young man, with a can do attitude, and wicked sharp mind.  Strangely, he’d earned a degree then enlisted, rather than become an officer.  It just so happened Bob and I came from the same home state, and only a few weeks prior I’d sent him home on compassionate leave to witness the birth of his first son.

Due to personnel rotations and timing, we hadn’t the opportunity to get Bob fully trained prior to deployment.  He had spent most of his time as our logistics, admin support, and “every other task we could think of” guy.  Up to that point he’d stayed in the rear with me, or my senior non-com.  Motivation never flagging, his ability to accomplish anything we asked never ceased to amaze.

I still remember the almost pleading look he hit me with when the call came in to support this mission.  The one bit of training we’d gotten Bob prior to deployment was combat training.  So while he couldn’t necessarily perform the specialist tasks of our unit, he could at least watch my six and provide a second set of hands on target.

What could possibly go wrong with this scenario?  In my mind, nothing so bad that would prevent me from taking him, so I did.

Things Go Sideways

Of course, things did go wrong.  All sorts of wrong, but not right away.  We linked up with the unit we’d be working with; conducted some training and weapons qualifications; then waited for the Intel to tip us off.  The morning of the mission we rolled up on the target at first light, immediately detained the traffickers and began searching for their narcotics.  We knew from previous experience the narcotics would likely be well-hidden somewhere on the target.  It took us eight hours in the blazing late-summer sun, but we finally found them … in the last place we looked.  All in all, we approximated we’d found one to two tons of hash.  There may have been opium too, but we never got the chance for a closer examination.

By the time we found the narcotics, the scene had turned somewhat chaotic.  Throughout our eight hour search, we’d discovered enough circumstantial evidence that the unit commander (who I’ll call Phil) felt compelled to stay.  Phil’s HHQ, who of course was not on scene, grew more nervous as time ticked on without a narcotics find.  HHQ started placing more pressure on Phil to pull his unit out.  Our mission was drawing a lot of attention from civilians in the area, any number of which could have turned out with ill intentions towards us.

By this point, the traffickers, who’d protested their innocence all day, had started to agitate as well.  In a moment of self-doubt, decision fatigue, and/or in an attempt to placate his HHQ in order to buy a few more minutes on target, Phil decided to loosen the traffickers’ bonds and allow them to have a smoke.  It proved an inopportune decision, made only moments before we discovered the main haul of narcotics.  Although I outranked Phil and didn’t agree with the decision, I backed it because it wasn’t my unit so it wasn’t my call.  All I could do was tell Bob to zip his body armor up extra tight and “be ready for anything”.

Whether by a prearranged signal or simply seizing a moment of inattentiveness caused by the discovery of the narcotics, one of the traffickers bolted for an entryway into a structure located next to where we discovered the narcotics.  At this point, all hell broke loose.  Several unit members, plus Bob, chased the trafficker into this structure which we’d cleared numerous times throughout the day.  Most of the other traffickers used that commotion to disperse like a covey of quail, each with unit members chasing after them.  It was literally like some awful version of Keystone Cops but with the U.S. military starring as the cops.

I had barely pulled my attention away from the hash I was examining in time to see Bob disappear into the structure.  At that point, time slowed to a crawl and a gaping pit opened in my stomach.  I believe in the last few years doctors have discovered scientific evidence for the time dilation people perceive in circumstances like this, and I can attest it is real.  I can also attest that as I typed this part of the story, my body re-experienced several of the physiological reactions I felt that moment, eight long years ago.

Before I could do or say anything, I heard loud and authoritative shouting coming from the direction of a cooking area on the side of the aforementioned structure.  One of the traffickers had tipped over white gas used for cooking and was about to flick his cigarette into it.  A unit member, with his hand on his holstered side arm, was yelling at him to put the cigarette down.  No one was quick enough on the draw.  The gas, the structure, and the drugs went up in flames like some hokey Hollywood movie.

Did I say the traffickers scattered like a covey of quail earlier?  Well, now it was our turn.  Everyone in the unit started to bug out.  I dare not say “retreat”, but they sure as hell ran away bravely while falling back to a safe rally point.  Everyone except for me that is.

Don’t get me wrong.  I wasn’t rooted in place based on some noble idea of standing my ground in the face of our now revealed enemy.  Nope, I was transfixed by a singular thought as I watched the fire engulf the entryway I had last seen Bob disappear through “Shit! I’m going to have to go in there.  I’ll be damned if I come back alive without his brand new father’s ass in tow.”

Some people might think that was terribly brave of me, but don’t confuse bravery with guilt.  I was the one who had brought half-trained Bob on the mission, ordered him “to be ready for anything”, and then lost track of him while I examined the narcotics.  He was my responsibility that day, and I had failed.  My only thought was to try and rectify that situation.

I would love to say I calmly moved towards the flames booming his name like some sort of parade ground drill instructor.  In reality, I was probably shrieking his name with tears streaming down my face, like a toddler cries for his mama after a skinned knee.  Fortunately, just before I hit the smoke-filled entryway, I heard a familiar voice shouting my name.  I turned back to look … and there was Bob already at the fall back point!

I was too relieved to see Bob’s shiny face, to be pissed off at the fact that he’d left his “fearless” leader on target.  Praising every deity I could name under that now smoke filled sun, I took that as my queue and got the hell out of there.  Yes, my one and only combat(like) story ends with a retreat in the face of an actual enemy caused fire, but without a shot fired.  If I could figure out some way of embedding the song “Brave, Brave, Sir Robin” from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I would do so at this point.

Aftermath

Oddly enough, while I remember so vividly all the minutiae leading up to the fire, my memory fails me on some of the details from the aftermath.  Once we were safe, Bob told me how he’d chased his trafficker into the structure.  He and several of the unit members restrained the guy as he attempted to set fire to it from the inside.  I can’t remember if they evacuated through another entry/exit point (there were two), or if they exited from the same point they’d entered, and I just lost track of them in the commotion.  Either way, I would’ve essentially charged into an empty flaming space with a good chance of succumbing to the smoke and flames.

What about the traffickers?  They got away.  I guess they’d made the calculation that without the evidence, U.S. forces wouldn’t do anything to them.  They were right.  Hopefully some pissed off Afghan or Pakistani warlord “took care of them” for setting fire to his product.  Probably not, those countries are so awash with narcotics the loss of those particular drugs probably didn’t even dent the bottom line.

Phil’s unit made a weak attempt to go after the traffickers in the moments immediately following our “displacement” from the target.  Civilian interference quickly put an end to the effort though.  Shortly after that, Phil’s HHQ ordered us to evacuate to their location, despite what those of us on scene felt to be an obvious act of aggression.  If I had to guess, HHQ calculated with the narcotics destroyed, none of their personnel injured, and the dicey on- scene situation that there was no need to press their luck.  C’est la Guerre!

“Worth vs. Worth It”

As I stated in the Prologue, some of you may be wondering why I bothered to relate this exciting, somewhat unbelievable, and mostly off topic story on an FI blog.  Fair question, but I believe it illustrates the complexities in answering a “worth vs. worth it” set of questions I see repeated from potential pension earners in the FI space:  “What is my pension worth?” and “Is my pension worth it?”.  One is a more straight forward question of value.  The other question is as subjective, and dependent on individual circumstances, as they come.

Let’s examine a few of points within my story, and hopefully, you will see what I mean.  I’ll start with the narcotics.  The narcotics which burned up in that lovely fireball most definitely held a certain amount of worth, or street value.  Had the traffickers not destroyed them, we could have calculated that worth based on their weight and composition.  For argument’s sake, let’s say there was only hash within that haul of drugs, and it totaled $5 million in street value.  That’s a lot of monies!

Yet, was it “worth it”?  Was interdicting $5million of illegal narcotics worth almost dying?  Was it worth Bob almost dying?  Was it worth that hollow feeling of expendability I still get every time I think about those tragi-comedic events while shaving in the morning?  I argue “absolutely not”.

I base that answer on an insight I alluded to earlier.  Afghanistan and Pakistan are so awash in narcotics, the destroyed ones probably failed to register as a blip on some warlord’s bottom line.  In fact, if you multiplied that day’s efforts by 100 it still wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference to the U.S.’s wartime objectives.  Had someone died, their sacrifice would have amounted to something akin to the Dutch boy sticking fingers into the holes of a failing dike.  I doubt the Department of Defense would have worded their award citation in that manner, but the futility of our efforts remain stubbornly lodged in my mind.

Another good example of a “worth vs. worth it” calculation is the one I made when I believed Bob was trapped in a burning structure.  Whether I made the decision consciously or subconsciously; out of guilt or for some other reason; I clearly calculated the value of Bob’s life as equal to my own.  So for me, the answer to the question of whether it was “worth it” to run into that flaming structure was “yes”.

As a quick, therapeutic segue, I don’t type those words and thoughts lightly.  In fact, I don’t think I ever formulated them until just now.  I spent so much time dwelling on my negative feelings from that episode, that I never stopped to examine anything positive I might’ve learned about myself.  Certainly, I’m happy we survived.  Every time I get an email or the opportunity to catch up with Bob, I know things turned out for the best.  But like a dog with a bone, I’ve never been able to let those negative feelings go.  Maybe writing all of this down will help.  I never said all of the lessons learned from this story would be financial.

Post Script for Future Pensioners

There remains one final way in which this episode touches upon a “worth vs. worth it” calculation.  It might be the one most germane to my readers, especially those who stand to earn a pension while working potentially thankless jobs.  If you couldn’t tell, the events I relate in this story played a part in a mental breakdown I suffered in 2016.  After my breakdown, I was unsure if I could finish out four more years in the military and earn my pension.  It proved to be a “worth vs. worth it” decision.  Was the more than $1 million I would earn from a military pension worth the potential long term damage I might do to my mental health if I served four more years?  It was my Golden Albatross moment.

As related on my About Me page, my answer to that question ultimately proved to be “yes”.  I determined the potential risk was worth it.  I based part of that answer on my positive response to therapy, medication, and the mental resiliency the combination of the two created.  The other, equally important part of that equation, was my discovery of the FI movement.  The most important part of my FI discovery proved the realization that I could achieve FI for my family through my pension.  The power (and worth) of that realization keeps me motivated to get out of bed and go to work each day.

Of course, I made that Golden Albatross of a decision based on my own situation and factors.  Those are not your factors or any other person’s factors.  This probably means that I won’t be able to lend much help in determining if your pension is “worth it”; much like you couldn’t have helped decide if running into that burning structure was worth it to me.  Those types of decisions are just too personal.  Although, I hope my “No Shitter” will at least allow you to frame those types of decisions better, if and when it comes time to do so.

With that said, I can show you how to calculate what your pension is worth, much like I calculated my pension’s worth.   Just like I could’ve calculated the value of those narcotics from my story had the traffickers not destroyed them.  In fact, I intend to do so in upcoming posts for the Pension Series.

One final plea, which I’ve made elsewhere on this blog.  If you feel trapped in your own Golden Albatross situation and suffer mental health issues, it’s OK to seek help.  You are not weak for doing so but strong for taking action.  Utilize those mental health resources that medical coverage from a pensionable job often provides.  That’s why they are there.  A lot of these pension earning jobs suck, or have moments that suck, and will impact you for the rest of your life.  That’s why your employers dangle a pension at the end of it, to make you want to stay despite the suck.  You don’t have to suffer alone though.  If I can do it, anyone can.