[n., v. ek-spurt; adj. ek-spurt, ik-spurt]
noun
1. a person who has special skill or knowledge in some particular field; specialist; authority: a language expert.
First of all, a few basic assumptions to set the stage for this rant...
- To members of the military, WHERE YOU HAVE BEEN and WHAT YOU HAVE DONE while in the military is essential to establishing your credibility, and everything else is pretty much subordinate to this. It’s just the way they think.
- The Department of Defense is an intractable bureaucracy that wastes immense sums of taxpayer money on a daily basis without batting an eye. It is difficult to comprehend how high, wide, and deep is the fraud, waste, and abuse within the DoD. Moreover, the DoD hasn’t the slightest interest in addressing the problem or fixing it.
- The DoD is going to need to cut lots of money out of the budget very soon whether they like it or not.
- The military COULD stand to think outside the institutional box when making the aforementioned cuts.
- It MAY not send the right message to an all-volunteer force to propose deep cuts to their benefit packages in the midst of three wars.
With this in mind, it was with much distress that I read about the Defense Business Board’s plan to overhaul the military retirement system, essentially replacing the twenty year retirement with a tiered 401K type plan, and thereby saving the DoD untold sums of money… all by reneging on the cornerstone of the military benefit package, a proposed move that is sure to have a unbelievable impact on retention.
If you were to ask “have any of the knuckleheads on this board ever served in the military?” you might be on to something. The board roster reads like a who’s who list of noted academics and businesspeople without even a tangential connection to anything military, save for a handful of DoD civilians and a few who have, like the current Secretary of Defense, spent much longer in undergrad programs than in uniform.
In fact, among the 21 board members (bios are provided for 19) FIVE have served in the military. One is a retired USMC Major General, a nice start, but the remaining four have A COMBINED TOTAL OF 19 YEARS OF MILITARY EXPERIENCE, not all of it on active duty. TWO of the five have combat experience. None of them hold Chair or Vice-Chair positions. And these are the people charged with revamping the military retirement system, not one of them having a stake in the outcome.
So I ask you, would you appoint a commission of noted pastry chefs to determine how much doctors should be allowed to bill? How about a panel of rocket scientists to negotiate union benefits for plumbers?
Only if you had no earthly idea of what you were doing when you appointed the commission…
noun
1. a person who has special skill or knowledge in some particular field; specialist; authority: a language expert.
First of all, a few basic assumptions to set the stage for this rant...
- To members of the military, WHERE YOU HAVE BEEN and WHAT YOU HAVE DONE while in the military is essential to establishing your credibility, and everything else is pretty much subordinate to this. It’s just the way they think.
- The Department of Defense is an intractable bureaucracy that wastes immense sums of taxpayer money on a daily basis without batting an eye. It is difficult to comprehend how high, wide, and deep is the fraud, waste, and abuse within the DoD. Moreover, the DoD hasn’t the slightest interest in addressing the problem or fixing it.
- The DoD is going to need to cut lots of money out of the budget very soon whether they like it or not.
- The military COULD stand to think outside the institutional box when making the aforementioned cuts.
- It MAY not send the right message to an all-volunteer force to propose deep cuts to their benefit packages in the midst of three wars.
With this in mind, it was with much distress that I read about the Defense Business Board’s plan to overhaul the military retirement system, essentially replacing the twenty year retirement with a tiered 401K type plan, and thereby saving the DoD untold sums of money… all by reneging on the cornerstone of the military benefit package, a proposed move that is sure to have a unbelievable impact on retention.
If you were to ask “have any of the knuckleheads on this board ever served in the military?” you might be on to something. The board roster reads like a who’s who list of noted academics and businesspeople without even a tangential connection to anything military, save for a handful of DoD civilians and a few who have, like the current Secretary of Defense, spent much longer in undergrad programs than in uniform.
In fact, among the 21 board members (bios are provided for 19) FIVE have served in the military. One is a retired USMC Major General, a nice start, but the remaining four have A COMBINED TOTAL OF 19 YEARS OF MILITARY EXPERIENCE, not all of it on active duty. TWO of the five have combat experience. None of them hold Chair or Vice-Chair positions. And these are the people charged with revamping the military retirement system, not one of them having a stake in the outcome.
So I ask you, would you appoint a commission of noted pastry chefs to determine how much doctors should be allowed to bill? How about a panel of rocket scientists to negotiate union benefits for plumbers?
Only if you had no earthly idea of what you were doing when you appointed the commission…
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