DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Obama signs defense bill, finalizing military retirement overhaul

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/milit...rhaul/76302160/

I have a ton of family that not just served but also retired from their prospective branch of service. My nephews are enlisting and wanted to do the lifer thing like their father did. But are hesitant about it due to this issue.

Any views on this?? do you think it will cause future retention issues or make it better??

Just curios to see anyones opinion on this..

Just don't drop the soap!


‘Gay’ rape in military underreported by Pentagon


Far more military men are being raped by other men and experience other sexual traumas than is reported by the Pentagon because of the stigma attached to such assaults, says a new study released Tuesday by the American Psychological Association.

“Rates of military sexual trauma among men who served in the military may be as much as 15 times higher than has been previously reported, largely because of barriers associated with stigma, beliefs in myths about male rape, and feelings of helplessness,” the APA said in releasing findings published in its periodical Psychological Services.

If the survey of male combat veterans is accurate, it could mean the U.S. armed forces are dealing with an epidemic of male-on-male sex crimes.

Comparing the new study’s numbers and the Pentagon’s survey results produced some shocking statistics.

The Rand Corp., which conducted the most recent Pentagon sexual assault survey in 2014, found that about 12,000 men reported being assaulted. Sexual assault in the military is defined as unwanted sexual contact, including rape and other assaults or the attempt to commit those acts.

Of the 12,000 male victims, 3,850 reported “penetrative” attacks — meaning they were raped.

Extrapolating the study’s estimates of up to 15 times greater than the Pentagon’s count, it would mean that as many as 180,000 men are assaulted in one year and, of those, 57,750 are “penetrative” attacks.

The scholarly survey refers to “male sexual trauma,” which translated to this survey question response: “I was sexually assaulted while serving in the military.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/3/gay-rape-military-underreported-pentagon/?page=all

Also see...
http://data.baltimoresun.com/military-sexual-assaults/

I know people tend to put military folks on a pedestal but..they get their recruits fom the general population have lowered standards for people to get in..and lets be honest there are dirt bags in the military just like in the civi population..

but thanks for the response..i think.

Just wanted to add sometimes no matter how much training a recruit gets they are just scumbags..

So the retirement pay system. ugh...it's weird because recently, they were offering soldiers with 15 years in to do a early retirement.

the new retirement system in the long run is gonna be fantastic. however.....lol, there's gonna be some old heads that will scream "20 or nothing" and a lot of pissed off Senior NCO's. the officers won't care either way, they've always got paid ridiculous amounts of cash. where the military sees the rewards or consequences is with the enlisted personnel.

the pay increase is nothing new. we've always go a pay increase, it's just a matter of how much was the percentage. from personal experience, my and my squad we're less concerned about the base pay increase and more concerned with the BAH rates for soldiers with families. They haven't in a LONG time raised the BAS rate, it's still stuck at $350 a month no matter where you live.

the whole Guantanamo Bay thing, not surprised congress slipped some language in there to prevent obama from trying to close it, but whatever. This bill benefits the soldiers, and at the end of the day, i'll take that for a compromise on the base. so whatever.

before i continue, man...shout out to those females that got through ranger school. holy crap. i've done a ton of cool stuff in the military, but i never had the balls to go ranger. they didn't lower the standards for the women, and they pushed through. awesome stuff.


I'm glad Mr. Ted understood what i was saying, but allowing soldiers to open carry on a military base.....people need to understand that off duty, soldiers are less of soldiers and more of drunken frat boys. I'm cool with letting staff Duty and soldiers on CQ carry, thats fine....but just us common soldiers? especially enlisted?

i challenge any civilian to hang out in the barracks on a 4 day weekend, then come back to me and tell me thats a good idea. we already have an internal problem with violence within the ranks, and suicide, lets not add even more toys for us to jack each other up.

the whole "pay for patriotism" thing.....i dunno what to say about that. the fact that we had to more or less bribe the NFL and such to show support to the troops.

i rather have people do it because they WANT to, not because we "asked". so i'm glad they're shutting that down.

So for everybody who doesn't know about the TSP, it's called Thrift Savings Plan, which is basically like a 401k. it's always been around, and we could set up allotments to have a certain percentage put into our fund.

So with retirement, if you do 20 years, you get 50% of your base pay, 25 years is 75% and 30 is 100%. you get that money til you bite the dust, it's a pension. But the TSP can't be touched until 59 1/2, which was cool because you're already getting your money from retirement, then that kicks in, and you're good to go.

one thing that sucks with the TSP though, is that if you get out early, like i did (8 years), you can't fund the account, nor can you transfer the account. basically you have to let the money just sit there, but you can take the money out early, with some penalties, of course.

thats my thoughts on it so far.

when we was in arfijan, kuwait, CID had put a warrant out for this air force guy's arrest.

nobody knew what he looked like, but he was nick named the Porto potty bandit. he'd wait for a male soldiers to get in the porter john, then tip it over, take the guy out and rape him. he got like 15 dudes before he got caught. was some crazy stuff.

Jumpin' Horse crap! I'm just learning about this stuff!

Man I don't know about BAH..my youngest has a couple roomates living with him and his wife and he is making a small fortune on BAH..he is playing the system to his favor may not be the norm and I fully understand you stance.

It is an issue for sure.

bruh...there's sooooo much you don't know about. in kuwait it was nuts man. all rape is bad, but the females were clowning us because us men we're the ones who had to watch our backs.

yea there's definitely people who play the system. hell, you know about soldiers getting into contract marriages just so they don't have to live in the barracks.

but like, for example, when i was stationed in Ft. sill, oklahoma, the BAH rate is 1077 a month.

well, for a house that isn't in the hood, the rent is 900+, but more likely more.

but they started building up base housing, but it's so trash bro. base housing sucked.

i wish they would've committed more funding into base housing, cause some of the crap they have soldiers living in....ugh.

God the stories i could tell about strange perverse and just straight up nasty stuff the married woman and umm dont ask dont tell folks pulled in desert shield/desert storm time frame:/

People did things out in the desert that I would hope wouldnt have done back home:/

bruh you remember the story about those female soldiers that was selling sex who got caught down range?

they had like 6 figures worth of personal checks written by everybody from privates to generals. jeez...

Yes...I also remember the soldiers who found millions of Saddam's money in a river bank or some such..took a mess load of it and tried to smuggle it back home..turned in some stole some and got caught://

I know..which is one reason my sons picked the mos they did and hoped to god the housing was decent on the base they got sent to.

At fist when they both got married the first question i asked...son are you doing this to get out of the barracks and try to increase your pay?? she isnt pregnant is she:/

They didnt like the questions but after being in for a while they understood why I asked.

So you can't touch thrift savings until 67? Is that a new rule? And why would that be different than a 401k that you can take at 59.5?

I'm just curious more than anything. My mom worked for the DOD and she started withdrawing from her thrift savings around 60.

i had to check to make sure i got it right.

it's not 67, its 59. before i got out they were talking about raising it to 62. so thats my fault.

yea i feel you.

or the soldiers that get married right before a deployment.

ugh, that almsot never ends well. one name: Jody.

Man how did i miss your response on the carrying guns on base thing...People who have never been in don't understand..that unless they are in a combat mos..MOST of the others hardly ever train with a weapon..1 time a year qualifying..first sarg..turning a blind eye so to speak to how awful the finance person shoots/qualifying

Its the one thing I disagree with trump about..everyone on base is trained in firearms they should be carrying..that is a scary thought considering some of the behavior of lets say for arguments sake e1-4ish would scare the crap out of people if they saw how much drama said group is involved in:/

hahaha yes:)

so did my father..

No worries. I thought 67 seemed kind of old though.

I'll tell you this. My dad served 21 years in the navy. Nuclear subs for a large portion of that. The retirement after 20+ years is no joke, and my dad was enlisted. He was in his early 40s when he retired and basically went on and had another career and got another retirement. It can be quite lucrative if you put in the time. I didn't quite understand the article, but it sounded like they are changing that whole paradigm.

My brother was also a nuke boy..did the 20 plus..and is an owner of his own electrician business..he is not hurting in the least.

man thats awesome. i give big ups to anybody who can make it 20+ years in the military, and wasn't doing something easy like legal assistant lol.

Well, with the restructuring of the pension system, if you can collect partial pensions prior to a full 20, I'm curious how it will impact future budgets.

As for carrying on base... man, I'm torn on this one. On one hand I'm a big 2nd Amendment proponent and am fine with people carrying, but I also know where Swish is coming from. I can tell you from my experience that probably 20% of the Marine Corps should be locked up at any given time for everything ranging from stupid stuff you do when drunk to felonious activity. People just don't know the kinds of stuff they do. Its not that they are given a pass, they just usually don't get caught. Any plan developed is going to have to be tailored along a lot of fronts. You probably won't see much change when it comes to bases and active duty, though like Swish said, you'll probably have more Duty Officers carrying. We'll probably see more changes in places like recruiting stations and reserve centers. I don't envision this as being something like all reservists bring your guns to Drill type of thing. I think you may see some kind of stipulation that those carrying are either law enforcement in their day jobs, or at least concealed permit holders. At minimum I think you'll see an allowance where weapons can be stowed and secured in your vehicles.

"Gender Neutral" standards... I think this is an attempt at an end around of the current issue of getting women to serve in combat roles. To my knowledge the only types of standards that are different are the basic physical fitness standards. I was in Electronic Maint and the females in the class took the same tests we did and were graded on the same scale. I just can't envision any job in the military that you can introduce "gender neutral" physical fitness standards without either making it harder for women or easier for men.

One big thing I would change about military bases is upgrading the housing. I just believe a home away from home should be worth living in. I understand that in combat areas and on a ship you're just very limited but here at stateside or in an actually base overseas? There is just no excuse.

I'm not going to act like I know about all the bases situation..but the base housing my youngest was in for his first year hell both of my boys for that matter was not bad at all..I would live in it today if it was offered to me.

I love cycling its a hobby of mine the last few years and I ride through military housing at Wright Pat a lot and damn, it looked damn nice to me for base housing. I will also admit idk what rank that housing is being used for.

Now I know its not all base housing and I had the unfortunate pleasure of being in some terrible housing when I served.

But I do agree it is an issue and needs to be addressed.See Razor we can agree on something:)

From what I have seen it can vary a lot. It tends to be worse when it's full on barracks instead of regular housing. Single folks can have it rough.

Agree 100%

The bill doesn't look bad from what I've read. I do like the animal adoption piece of it, as those are service members too.

The retirement pay will always be a problem. My dad did his 20 and got out. Personally, I believe the survivor bennies should always be there, as military service does put a lot of strain on spouses and families. Military spouses have tough jobs too. Is the new retirement available immediately after retirement, or are they going to make them wait for an age limit?

I've lived in military housing as a kid, and although it was small, I don't remember any major problems. We could have been in nice areas. There was one time, before we got housing, that we stayed in a modified barracks with shared kitchen and bathrooms. It sucked, but we got our housing within a couple months.

The gender neutral piece will always be a problem. They should not lower standards to allow women any more than they would lower standards for men. Certain men are unable to serve in certain positions if they are limited mentally or physically, and women should be held to those same standards.

Yes to my understanding they are indeed going to make them wait was what was told to me..if I am wrong mea culpa..but I dont think I'm wrong about that.