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Posted: **Sat 03 Jan 2015, 22:52:19**

.
Found this little gem , it's a bit old .....1993
it's an internal study by the pentagon on the cost of one light infantryman , equipped , trained
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a265173.pdf

estimated cost ....138.000 $ , that was in 1993
during a 2012 budget hearing , a committee senator asked the cost of one soldier deployed in Afghanistan
under secretary Hale said that to the best of his knowledge , the annual cost of one soldier was about 850.000 bucks
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/2 ... nd-rising/

of course there is very large deployment and building costs , fuel is a massive bill and it's a simple division of cost per head
it get even worst when one realize there is barely one man in four holding a gun and walking on the wild side

The cost for the Taliban is probably less than 500$
that's the cost of a good quality AK with a box of ammo , with spare change left over

Posted: **Sat 03 Jan 2015, 23:15:39**

I think the U.S. Military veterans pensions are going to be a crippler over coming years. Of a bunch of ex service personnel I am friendly with are a bunch of guys in their 70s & 80s from the Korea & Vietnam war eras, copping near $1k a week, for decades, living in 3rd world countries where their money goes much further than at home, but does essentially nothing for the U.S. economy. There must be hundreds of thousands of these guys scattered around the world now, with thousands more a month added.

Posted: **Sun 04 Jan 2015, 01:17:03**

SeaGypsy wrote:I think the U.S. Military veterans pensions are going to be a crippler over coming years. Of a bunch of ex service personnel I am friendly with are a bunch of guys in their 70s & 80s from the Korea & Vietnam war eras, copping near $1k a week, for decades, living in 3rd world countries where their money goes much further than at home, but does essentially nothing for the U.S. economy. There must be hundreds of thousands of these guys scattered around the world now, with thousands more a month added.

In order to make $1,000 per week in retirement, you would have to retire as an O-5 (Lt. Col) with 22 years of service or higher. O-5's percentage wise are in the top 2% of the military ( I wonder what the retirement package for the top 2% of GM is?). An O-10 (four star general) with 38 years of service, the highest pay, would only pull in around $2,400 per week in retirement. There are 3 times as many enlisted retirees than officers. So you must know a lot of retired officers.

An E-5 (Enlisted Staff Sergeant) with 20 years, (about the lowest level you could retire), would draw about $357 per week. An E-9 with 38 years (The highest enlisted rank) would pull in around $840 per week. So no enlisted are making $1,000 per week from their retirement.

In addition, retirement pay is fully taxable. This is money that is returned to the Government (I always thought this was silly).

I would estimate the average military retirement works out to less than $500 per week. With 1.9 million retirees that works out to less than 50 billion a year. The military budget is about 1,000 billion, which works out to 5% of the military budget being used for retirement pay.

You also have to remember there used to be a lot more service members than there are now. Those guys are going to die out and the ranks of military retirees will decline. So bottom line, I don't think military retirement pay is going to collapse the government any time soon.

Posted: **Sun 04 Jan 2015, 02:00:58**

Some of the older guys were decorated, almost all the younger guys are on disability from combat & getting close to $1k a week in their 20's. Isn't there about 270k new VA pensions granted a year? With a good chunk of that being young guys with PTSD?

Posted: **Sun 04 Jan 2015, 06:47:10**

SeaGypsy wrote:Some of the older guys were decorated, almost all the younger guys are on disability from combat & getting close to $1k a week in their 20's. Isn't there about 270k new VA pensions granted a year? With a good chunk of that being young guys with PTSD?

I tried to find some info on the number of pensions granted per year, but could not find a source. But with a little less than 1.5 million soldiers on active duty, 270K a year seems rather excessive. Thats about 20% of the total force PER YEAR. I seriously doubt that.

That said, I may have underestimated my average retirement estimate because disability retirements pay more, and I did not include that in my back of envelope guess. Even so, military retirement is not going to break the nation financially. Without it you get no career military members, and end up trying to run a military with junior captains running things.

Posted: **Sun 04 Jan 2015, 07:32:21**

SeaGypsy wrote:Some of the older guys were decorated, almost all the younger guys are on disability from combat & getting close to $1k a week in their 20's. Isn't there about 270k new VA pensions granted a year? With a good chunk of that being young guys with PTSD?

Below is the current disability tables for the Veterans Administration. A 100% disabled veteran, meaning you are blinded, paraplegic, or disabled in some way you are unable to work is only $3187.60 a month if you have a spouse and child. That is only $796.90 a week. The max shown is $3447.72 a month, $861.93 a week, and that is if you are also supporting 2 parents along with a spouse and child.

A single, 100% disabled Veteran makes only $2906.83 a month, $726.70 a week.

That's not a lot for having your eyes blinded, your legs or arms blown off, or your spine shot in half, all in the service of your country. I made over $1400 a week working a craft job before I retired from AT&T last year. But of course I was never shot at while doing my job!

http://www.benefits.va.gov/compensation ... 1.asp#BM05

Posted: **Sun 04 Jan 2015, 11:24:57**

Privatization.
Why commit to a soldier when you can pay a contractor piece-work rates and be done?

Posted: **Sun 04 Jan 2015, 14:58:09**

Pops wrote:Privatization.
Why commit to a soldier when you can pay a contractor piece-work rates and be done?

Good idea lets make the soldiers free range slaves instead of having to take care them.

Posted: **Sun 04 Jan 2015, 15:00:29**

The barbarians always win aginst the Empire in the end.

Tick Tock, USA.

Posted: **Sun 04 Jan 2015, 15:50:00**

When a country turns to Mercenaries it is on the down slope of civilization.

Posted: **Sun 04 Jan 2015, 17:02:49**

Drones cheap to run,no pensions required can kill as many multi generational family groups as necessary without much negative consequence.(deliberately lessen the likelihood of revenge in the future,cant have the relatives of Saddam or Gadaffi running around and you can claim it was a mistake)
and/or
Just train, fund and arm the disenfranchised to do your fighting for you and bring down the governments of your ideological enemies its a lot cheaper,than sending your citizens in.(short term)
or
Citizenship for anyone willing to die for the flag on minimum wage.

Posted: **Sun 04 Jan 2015, 18:27:42**

OK Carinke, I think I was converting AUD, PHP & USD, muddled the numbers somewhat. At present I can't recall where I got the near quarter million number, from memory it peaked as the Iraq withdrawal proceeded.

Posted: **Sun 04 Jan 2015, 21:35:02**

careinke wrote:
Pops wrote:Privatization.
Why commit to a soldier when you can pay a contractor piece-work rates and be done?

Good idea lets make the soldiers free range slaves instead of having to take care them.

It isn't some R pipe dream, there were more mercs in Iraq and Affgan than GIs.

https://www.rutherford.org/publications ... ontractors

Posted: **Sun 04 Jan 2015, 22:49:45**

.
It's a common misconception to believe the barbarians hordes beaten the Roman army ,
most of the time they were the Roman army .
up to the end the Empire had military supremacy
but they just ran out of money

Posted: **Sun 04 Jan 2015, 22:57:50**

Correct, it was a breakdown of command and control. When the pay stopped showing up most of the outer empire desolved into the local population. Of which they were already a part of.

Posted: **Sat 17 Feb 2018, 21:07:40**

For more than 20 years, the Government Accountability Office has never been able to produce a clean audit at the Defense Department, as required by federal law to allow appropriations for the next fiscal year, because of hundreds of millions of dollars in unaccounted annual expenditures. What does the federal government spend for military purposes? It is far larger than appropriations and allocations just to the DoD! Most citizens are not cognizant, and politicians disguise actual total military expenditures. These expenditures and obligations account for approximately 25 percent of the total federal fiscal budget, or about 5.3 percent of U.S. GDP. The United Kingdom and Japan, on the other hand, restrict total military expenditure to 2 percent and 1 percent of their GDP, respectively. For FY2018, actual U.S. military expenditures and obligations not only include DoD appropriations ($622 billion) that the Office of Management of the Budget

US military expenditure a giant elephant in the room

Posted: **Sat 17 Feb 2018, 22:08:48**

The Ds and the Rs in Congress have just combined to pass a two year budget with a huge budget INCREASE for the military, and then Trump signed it into law.

We evidently haven't hit Peak Military yet in the USA.

Cheers!

Peak Military? Not yet. Not by a long shot.

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