Military Retirement

Serviceman Charles LaBlonde’s defense of the military retirement pay system (Letters, Feb. 26) moved me to tears!

Here’s a young fellow just 22 years out of college who (presumably) has served his country well for all that time in the U.S. Air Force--but oh, my God, how he’s suffered! The system, he claims, “is a payoff for being treated like dirt for 20 plus years.” And after telling the world (consisting, I suppose, of Times readers and anyone else who would listen) of the torment he’s endured, he concludes that whatever he’ll get in retirement pay is only “partial (his italics, not mine) compensation for being treated like garbage for 20 years while defending you and your freedom” (my italics, not his).

Well, now! I’d like to offer a response to LaBlonde. My heart bleeds for you, sir, that the house you bought (the loan on which was no doubt partially guaranteed by the government that you’ve served all these years) socked you with an 18% mortgage. And if you get a toothache, you have to pay for relief just like all the rest of us who don’t have dental coverage. Tsk, tsk! Oh, yes, and braces for your daughter’s teeth. They don’t come out of the public trough, either; you have to foot the bill, like most of us--veterans and noncombatants alike.

And your family has to “go to a public health hospital with the welfare folks.” Your children, you moan, have to “leave their friends and start over” whenever you’re transferred. Now that’s pretty heavy stuff. As an “Army brat” who saw the Great Depression up close, cheated on the eye exams to wangle his way into the Army in World War II, saw friends get their heads and arms blown off, and was lucky enough to get back from Italy just in time to spend a few precious days with his mother before she died of cancer at age 45, I can empathize with you.

Our family moved a total of 29 times in 18 years, during which I was lucky enough to know George Patton as a young major and Douglas MacArthur as the CO for whom my father was intelligence officer in 1924-25. And I got to know my Mom for 26 years--an Army wife who took all those moves and their attendant inconveniences in stride. “How fortunate we are,” she used to say, “that we can make this small sacrifice for a country that has given us blessings beyond the wildest dreams of those who bled and died that we might know freedom as God intended it to be.”

You’re to be pitied, Mr. LaBlonde. You’ve been short-changed. Your country has let you down. In fact, your letter to The Times suggests that the whole cockeyed world has let you down. But take heart, Charley m’boy--after you retire from the Air Force on the meager pittance your government will pay you, perhaps you’ll have time to read the histories of other American patriots who got shafted in the service of their country. Guys like Harold Russell, Al Schmidt, the Sullivan brothers, Audie Murphy and a few hundred thousand other guys living or dead who’d have loved to have the future that lies ahead for you.

You’d do well to be grateful for the fact that you did your time between 1963 and 1985 instead of 1776 or 1941-45. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t be around to beef about all the opportunities you’ve been denied in the 22 years you’ve been a guardian of our liberties. Which suggests, by the way, that you must have re-upped at least six times; did someone put a gun to your back to make you do it?

WILLIAM S. KOESTER

Upland

As a retired naval officer with 35 years of continuous service, I wholeheartedly concur with the sentiments expressed in reader responses to your editorial (Feb. 18), “A Grotesque Bloating.” However, I would like to mention one aspect associated with a naval career that is very seldom mentioned, and that is the exclusion of the career individual from potential monetary gains in the civilian sector. The long deployments/separations and frequent transfers virtually exclude the career Navy man from:

1--Dabbling in the stock market. One can’t decide to buy/sell at what appear to be the best times while on submerged patrol on an extended deployment to the Indian Ocean/Western Pacific.

2--Establishing close and longstanding civilian relationships via local fraternal organizations that could possibly lead to enhanced business opportunities--e.g., partnerships with one or more individuals to take advantage of an emerging local business activity.

3--Becoming intimately familiar with one locality in order to be in a position to seize on local real-estate opportunities.

4--Taking on a part-time job with the potential for full-time productive career employment.

I sincerely believe, along with many of my contemporaries, that we could have been much better off financially today if we had not chosen a naval career and all the sacrifices that it entails.

PETER J. SPINK

El Cajon

I’d like to tell Charles LaBlonde, who has been “treated like garbage” for 20 years in the Air Force, that many 40-year-olds have had jobs for 20 years and have no hope of “middle-management” careers. We have college and dental expenses, high mortgage rates and outrageous rents. And we have to look forward to 25 more years of the same before we can retire at 30% of our pay and enjoy the “partial compensation” of retirement.

SALLY COOK

Granada Hills

I’ve been reading some of the letters concerning your military retirement editorial. It seems that many of those responding felt that the military pension is justifiable. Their reasons include 20 years of being treated like dirt, time spent away from the family, moving every three or four years and “ducking shots in Southeast Asia” (a place we had no business being, but that’s another story), among others.

As a military member myself, I understand the hardships endured by a person spending 20 years in the military. But I also know that no one forces these people to spend 20 years in the military. If I decide tomorrow to make a career of the service, it’s my own free choice, and, while I may not be able to just walk away from it tomorrow, all I have to do is wait until my enlistment is up.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, in these hard economic times in which tough austerity measures are being proposed for all sorts of programs, we may as well include military pensions. Just a few small changes could save billions.

ANDREW MORAN

Lompoc