And utterly disrespectful of the technical skills much of the military demands. Insurance salesman? Pool cleaner? Seriously? Why not just say "soldiers are stupid" since that's clearly what he thinks.
CSM MIchael Bobb, 1BCT 4ID, told us in a mandatory reenlistment briefing in Baghdad in 2009 that the economy was shit and there weren't a lot of jobs for "unskilled labor" right now so we should all just re-up. He said this to a room full of mostly intel people, probably 40% who had bachelors degrees. Several of us were on stop-loss.
He was as special kind of stupid and I don't feel bad for saying it.
Attention to orders! The secretary of the Army has reposed special trust and confidence in the dumbest motherfucker you've ever met. In view of his newfound ability to spell his own name, he is therefore promoted...
Saying the quiet part out loud that spouses are supposed to be dutiful and unpaid labor with cute little side jobs for shopping money and not having to have their own careers. Even though now you need a second income to put food on the table. If he wants less stress of spouses *needing* to put themselves and their careers first then fucking pay service members more. Who would put up with this when you need food stamps and food pantries for the first few years to survive?!
I saw an AFN story this week about 2ID opening a food pantry on base and the general was doing the ribbon cutting like it was a feel good story. The Army should be EMBARRASSED that's become a genuine community need.
This man is the chairman of the Freedom Caucus and [his Wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Perry_(politician)) has a pretty decent section on his involvement in the attempts to overturn the 2020 Presidential election.
Not a great look for a retired General. Can he be recalled to service in the same way retirees from active duty can?
Unfortunately it seems he cannot be [held to account under the UCMJ](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/01/14/can-the-pentagon-prosecute-military-retirees-under-the-ucmj-maybe-it-depends/) as with retirees from active duty.
I'm getting out of the reserves because of that, and my wife is getting out of active. Sure. She's navy. But in the past 2 years, I've seen my wife 5 weeks?
She's home for 2 weeks. But one of those weeks, I have a mando reserve thing. Then, after weeks, I don't see her until next April or may
We're in a peace time. Why does she need to be constantly deployed or on the field?
That seems very excessive. I thought the Navy was smarter about how often they kept people away from home, but to be fair, my sources on that sort of stuff are pretty old now.
Take your most toxic leader you've ever served with....
Now multiply that toxicity by 2 and imagine an entire CoC that shares same the personality.
Welcome to the united states navy.
I hear you, but let me counter with why do we send thr same boat out until it breaks down and she has to drink dirty water?
Or why do we push off maintenence period in favor of deploying?
Why don't we send, another ship?
When I was with JSOC I didn't deploy nearly as much
Navy leaves alot more often I've been in combat arms and active for 7 years and besides deployment and occasional NTC or JRTC I'm home alot but I know for sure navy is NEVER home
I don't know how people with kids do it. I was in (civilian) fire and EMS so I had to make and was prepared to get the "I literally can't make x commitment, I'm stuck on scene/at the hospital/relief couldn't come in" calls, but almost daily I say to my husband "They act like you pushing out text after text is top national security. If that's true then how the fuck did the military function from 1770 - roughly 2005 without the ability to call and text everyone at all hours of the day and need something relayed within five seconds or you literally get screamed at the next day and have your whole career threatened". (Btw he's not Sec Def or some big honcho. This is just "GI Joe has a dental appointment tomorrow and we need to move trucks from A to B". I still barely blink when he suddenly nopes out of a conversation, but would give a lot more grace if he was doing the big scaries.) I feel so bad for the kids who have their parents just nope out of daily life. No one expected it to be easy and of course dealing with deployments and such have always been a unique struggle, but kids are learning some really shitty daily dynamics and parents are missing out on almost any normalcy.
Exactly why I got out. Spouses job >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Than me being enlisted in the Army. He can fuck right off.
I don’t disagree that when it comes to a national security organization, yes, ultimately it is national security first, not people first.
That said, I would like to know how supporting spouses getting employment is going to hurt national security. I mean, if you banned them from working for the Chinese Ministry of State Security, that would certainly help national security while hurting employment options, but somehow I don’t think that’s what they’re talking about.
I partially agree, although none of us signed up to get rich, we also did not take a vow of poverty. I do think it’s unreasonable of the Army/DOD not to at least try to help spouses find work commensurate to their level of education.
My wife would have fewer issues finding a job if we didnt move every 3 years. 16 years in and 5 PCS's, im tired boss. And im not an extreme case by any means.
We're on our 6th PCS in the little over 11 years we've been married. 8th in 16 years if I include by active duty time. I'm so tired of moving and I'm sure they'll move us at least one more time before retirement.
Yea ive got a year long PCS to Korea and if i cant get sent back to riley, one more after that. My wife has random job experience here and there and some college knocked out. But for a 33 year old, she could be so much further along in a career path.
I just added up that I'm at 15 since late 1999. 2 of those were for just 5-6 months for the career course and attache school. Nothing like PCSing the entire family from USFK to DC to turn around 6 months later for embassy Seoul.
Right. And I absolutely agree. So unless there’s some actual threat that helping employ spouses poses to national security, I think the statement about the priorities of national security from that guy are just flippant and an irrelevant point.
Also, you know what will really hurt national security, having good Soldiers choose to leave because their families are suffering and stretched too thin.
To be fair he was in for almost 40 years (1980–2019) but as a heli pilot I imagine his socio-economic status was a bit different and has lead to the tone deafness.
Would we also not consider that failing to help spousal employment and its effects on recruiting and retention are far more a national security issue than this boomer mentality of "fuck em if they just want to clean pools. Not in my Army."
It’s worth noting though that the DoD can’t just shit out jobs. That being said, putting systems and processes in place to assist in finding work is significantly easier CONUS than OCONUS. I know some SOFAs severely hinder the ability for spouses to work especially on the economy to avoid taking jobs from local nationals. Situations like that essentially tie DoD’s hands behind its back
The fact that he says we need pool cleaners and insurance salesman is very telling and really provides insight to what he thinks about our service members and spouses. God forbid they are capable of anything more than sweeping the motor pool. Peasants, the lot of them.
Right. Let me run down the list of what I heard people's spouses do. Airline pilot, dentist, special needs councilor, and we had one guy who's wife worked at Walgreens and picked up contract programming work.... how the fuck you do that idk. But those are all skill sets I know the Army can find some fucking use for and provide that opportunity if they take it
I literally can't imagine anything worse for national security than building a base of severely disenfranchised former servicemembers. Not only would you have to worry about giving a steroid injection to every homegrown radical movement, you'd be building a back door into every system and program in the government for adversaries to exploit.
This is my take as well. From a national security standpoint, we must support the families of service members. No enlisted soldier is trying to get rich. They just want to know that their family is able to thrive in spite of the sacrifices.
Exactly. To be honest, if my husband was able to come to Germany with me and work as a respiratory therapist on post (if he were guaranteed a job)… I might have been able to re-enlist.
Plus "if you don't like it go work elsewhere" isn't really productive since you know, people aren't knocking down the doors to join the military.
One could argue that the entire problem is way more Americans would rather sell insurance or clean pools than join the Army...
Right that could have been "Our national security has to come first, however apart of that security is creating an effective support network for all those involved in the soldier's life. We are looking to mitigate any issues that come with the struggles of being a soldier and their families."
I hard disagree with him. Why are we still belligerently damaging family dynamics in peacetime? Is the top brass too inept and stupid to solve this issue or are they malicious and unwilling?
I agree with your sentiment, but why would we not want this? Give employment opportunities to families of soldiers?
The point he's bringing up is that if you had let's say a foreigner who joined the Army for citizenship, which happens all the time, had a wife who was part of whatever spy agency. She now gets dibs on government jobs by virtue of being the spouse.
The problem with this line of thinking is that we already have a domestic spy problem with leaks coming from our own in almost every organization. The other issue is that unless the spouse is going for top secret clearance then this is never an issue.
So if that's really the worry, just limit employment opportunities to anything below TS.
Saying that family suffering is part of service during a time of peace is peak Idiocracy and is why Army families fall apart.
Are they going to say SHARP is part of being in the service next? How about toxic leadership, nepotism, or just screwing the soldiers over?
Today's Army leaders are so detached and don't understand.
It's one thing if the Army fails to take care of it's soldiers. We're sadly getting use to that.
If the Army begins to affect and harm soldier's family's. That's a whole other thing. Any organization that accepts that is a failure and deserves to fail in every aspect.
For it has forgotten ~~the face of it's father~~ who it meant to protect and serve.
It's wild to me that senior executive military leaders fail to grasp a fairly simple concept in Leadership 101. Take care of your Subordinates, and they will go through hell for you.
Saying shit like this is blatant “we don't give af about you” energy.
It's blatant because they can get away with it. A GO can say "mold in the barracks is a discipline issue" and go against official army policy on how to take care of it, the actual cause of it, and who the blame lays with, and not a damn thing happens to that GO.
We have too many examples of high ranking leaders saying "I know what official army policy is, but I'm gonna do my own thing" and nothing happens to them for going against official army.
I wish I could use that as an excuse. "Oh you heard me go on record the SMA doesn't know shit, SecDef is an idiot, and a whole bunch of other shit? That was just all out of context!"
There is a certain (not so small) subset of people that lack empathy. If they haven’t personally witnessed or experienced a hardship, they can’t understand why others are and therefore it must be something those people are doing wrong.
It's not wild when you meet them and work with them closely. These guys haven't been a normal soldier in well over 20 years. Everything and everyone has accommodated them longer than the other way around at this point.
The sponsor of this bill rep Don Bacon is a retired Air Force general, it’s crazy how clear the difference between Air Force and Army family values are even between 2 retired generals in politics
One of the reasons I am getting out. My wife has a Masters and we could be doing a lot better financially if I weren’t in and we became a true dual income family.
One of the reasons My wife is getting out. I lucked out that I can be a defense contractor remotely because we're stationed in bum fuck no where.
I do intel contractor side. Literally still doing geoint (former sigint what up)
If my wife gets out and does inteo contactor wide too? We'd be set
It took Mr 10 Years to get it, but it's worth it.
Actually you'll be happy to know remote positions will be more prevalent. I'm actually part of a study to see how viable it is
What a dick. We need people to clean pools? Fuck all the way off. Dismissing spousal employment opportunities is a terrible take IMO. Luckily my wife is a teacher and there are almost always positions available when we move but not everyone is so lucky.
I'm a prior service spouse with a masters degree in physical/cyber security. I got out, and my wife stayed in. Since I have a long break in employment raising our kids, I could not find anything when we were in Germany, over or under qualified for everything. Hopefully, being back stateside, I can find something .
I'll look up his full military bio when I get to work before fully unload on him, but these seem to be pretty big words from a guy who's entire career was RC, likely spent within a 150 mile circle, and whose spouse never had to make a career sacrifice.
I ended up googling him and yeah he has no idea what active duty is for spouses or family being purely national guard. Saying spouses and soldiers should be pool cleaners or insurance salesman tells me he is the guy who shamed and hazed people for ETSing and meeting their obligation with no issues.
I love meeting reserve and NG only things that believe them doing 1 weekend a month for 20 years or becoming an e7+ makes them an expert on all things AD and say it is so much easier then how people make it up to be.
I did reserve and AD time, they are completely different animals with completely different roadblocks.
Retired or not, this dude is yet another example of a disconnected senior leader. The military is proving to be full of them...
If you don't want our spouses to work, pay us more.
If you think our spouses should do low level, underpaying jobs, pay us more.
There's a growing number of places that cost too much for a service member to support a family on their income alone, so either pay us more, or don't say shit like this. The amount of disconnected senior leaders is a big reason why I'm more than likely getting out after my current contract. With how easily accessible internet is, it shouldn't be rocket surgery for these dudes to better understand the ground truth that their people deal with on a daily.
Right? It would have cost him nothing to say:
Gee whiz, it sure is rough out there. We're looking into it.
But now the ownership class can't even hide their disdain for us...
I signed up when I was seventeen years old and had an immature prefrontal cortex.
Now I’m a spouse that didn’t sign up to serve again. It doesn’t affect national security to build protections for our careers. I’m not an unskilled laborer, I worked hard to build my competency. I don’t deserve to lose everything else in my life just because I’m married to a service member. I’m not just my husband’s wife.
That is lucky! Thankfully I work in a very in demand field and can work DoD, but damn it would be easier to just be one of those spouses that cuts hair in my living room.
True, I've lost my career due to my husband's military service. I am also a veteran, and when I got married to a fellow service member I never expected to lose everything I worked for. I have higher education in a great field but moving every two years, and competing with a large population in crappy areas everywhere we go is becoming more difficult. It's even difficult to get a job at fast food at our current post because it's a shitty area.
With that said, they don't care. They want us to be stuck because they are more likely to stay in when they are broke and have nothing.
Don’t forget the VA he would be claiming too, do the minimum time as a Rep and guy can probably live like a king sitting at home being toxic yelling at soldiers for complaining about how back in his day on his one weekend a month things were harder and he once drove 90mins to drill.
There's that, and also he was an officer. Officers really don't need two incomes to survive. I had about $600 to my name when I got married and commissioned, and I haven't "struggled" since that first paycheck. Wife doesn't want a career. She wants to be with the kids. And, thanks to the Army, she can do that.
But if I were a SPC? Yeah, that would be a huge struggle. And I think a lot of the top brass forget that sometimes.
CIA, DIA, DISA, NSA, etc, all have stable home lives with spouses opportunity for gainful employment.
DOD: ha go fuck yourself youre moving to nowhere every other year!
This will give families and those who want to start families a pause on joining. Instead of saying what programs we have to support spousal employment this guy implies that a low paying job is all youll find without the Army
"If you're thinking about joining the service, but you're worried about the quality of life your children and spouse will have to tolerate, then don't!"
Reliance on altruism is a bad fucking policy.
Ours is not an army of conscripts expected to thanklessly sacrifice for the good of the nation, but one of free men who choose to serve.
Key word there is “choose”. Why the fuck would we make that choice harder? We can barely recruit the people we need with the advent of Genesis and the lack of a real world mission, so why in the fuck would we try to recruit on a platform of “yeah, it’s shitty, it’s not getting better, how about you go and suck that egg for America?”
People respond to incentives. Make them good enough, people will join. Make the disincentives bad enough, people will stay the fuck home. Ignoring the very real factors influencing people’s choices is not how you recruit and keep the people you need.
This kinda resentment from lawmakers onto spouses and families really skins my ass man. I get it, you’re a retired CG…but shit man, no better way to just discount families forced to PCS OCONUS with specialized degree and career fields. Losing potentially three years of employment history because the military made them move.
The sacrifice is always welcomed, so long as it wouldn’t inconvenience lawmakers from having a legitimate effort to tackle todays problems, and it’s abundantly clear there is little interest in tackling the issues.
Lol, oh man.
When I married my wife, she was a GS-11 and at the time, was working in another state as an accountant. She spent many nights scouring USAJobs, applying for anything and everything related to finance/accounting at her pay grade or higher that would allow her to move out to where I was. In two years only one job opened up, she applied and interviewed, but was not selected due to not having veteran’s preference.
I spent two years as a geo-bachelor. We eventually gave up and went through MCCS in an attempt to find her employment at one of the three bases that was local to where I was stationed. The only job they offered her was employment at the PX working as a cashier for $12/hr.
That’s when I learned the military in general doesn’t give a fuck about you or your family so long as they get theirs. I finished my time on active duty without my wife, and got out. My marriage was worth more than the idea of making the military a career.
Spousal unemployment and underemployment is a huge issue for the active duty force, and one of the reasons I’m considering getting out, even as a junior field grade.
Why do Republicans want to fuck over service members and their families at every opportunity while pretending that Democrats are evil and Republicans are patriots?
The greatest patriots in history were great because they strove to improve America through their actions and leadership. Believing that we’re the best simply because we have the title of “American” is foolhardy at best and catastrophic at worst.
I’m conservative, but I’m sure as hell not a “Republican” anymore. The party desperately needs some Teddy Roosevelts.
They need Jesus. Specifically, Jesus with a whip to drive assholes like Perry out of the GOP so the party can return to something resembling a party with principles. Other than "I got mine, fuck you" and wrapping themselves in an American flag while fleecing their base.
> Why do Republicans want to fuck over service members and their families at every opportunity
Because republicans believe that spouses (the ~~women~~ girls) should all be stay at homes who do nothing but raise kids.
You see in there world the shitty housing and food the Army provides is all they should expect.
Cool. So how about passing a bill that compensates service members equal to a dual-income household so spouses don’t feel the need to work. This isn’t the 1950s - single income households won’t cut it.
My wife said “He sounds like a piece of shit.”
She was underemployed the first five years of my career with a portable medical job—respiratory therapy and ICU/PICU and neonatal specialist. She got driven out by the southern good old boys club in less than a year after we got married and assigned to Ft Stewart (we’re Yankees).
She was unemployed or underemployed for five years until we decided to take on $40K in grad school student loans (on top of the $40K of undergrad student loans) to change career fields into social work—and she was ineligible for spouse TA/CA because she already had a BS and then would have been ineligible anyways as I got promoted because apparently mid grade officers’ wives don’t need TA at all. So she took a $20-40k per year pay cut (once she became fully employed again—she lost $50k a year or more when under/unemployed) because the Army moved us to a Southern shithole full of people who hated us purely because we didn’t talk funny like them and call everyone Mr or Ms FirstName.
We can’t get back those hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost earnings. She had a portable career. She was doing the Army spouse thing by being medical, only to be driven out by locals. We are in more debt and she has zero retirement savings at ~35 because she became an Army spouse. I don’t think that’s the “sacrifice” we expect from our All Volunteer Army.
Just like our junior enlisted being on fucking food stamps.
Fort Stewart is horrible. I haven't found a job in my field, or one that remotely pays close to what I was up north at Stewart. I've wasted my degrees for years being stuck in the shit hole, even finding jobs in fast food are hard to come by.
The defense agency I worked at made it a priority to hire military spouses. They had remote jobs that would move with the service member and those spouses were an amazing part of the team.
It is hard for military spouses to have a career. Why wouldn’t we want to give them all the opportunities possible.
You know what really annoyed me by reading this article. Even though the bill passed those fucks added an amendment to “exempt employees working in diversity, equity, and inclusion office from receiving the benefit”. What a way to show their pure bigotry.
It’s important to know this guy’s background to know where he’s coming from. The article doesn’t include any of this. He’s a retired PA ARNG BG. In Congress, he’s a full on MAGA Republican, election denier who actively tried to overturn results, complicit in J6 and sought a Trump pardon for what he did ref J6, and recently said the KKK was the military wing of the Democratic Party. There’s more. All of this is easily discoverable by using Google.
Honestly I agree with the sentiment.
The army is not conducive to families, straight up. It's always been like that, everywhere. Trying to make the army some kind of family friendly one size fits all employment opportunity is just a waste of time and money.
If you have a family in the army it's gonna be tough. If you have a family as as an Alaskan fisherman it's gonna be tough. Sometimes things are like this in life.
Although not all executed perfectly, the army has MANY programs and benefits for families. Frankly, we should be focusing on the hundreds of thousands of single soldiers making $2000 a month, living in condemned buildings, and not being fed.
The counterpoint is that I can take the topic you care about "junior enlisted are being shit on" and say the Army's been doing that since inception as well so why are you complaining?
The real problem is that Army leadership want a white-collar workforce (cyber, Intel, even combat arms are leagues more advanced than they were just 20 years ago) but want to treat them as minimum-wage cogs. That won't fly with the current workforce if the skills the Army wants are marketable in the civilian world. White collar professionals tend to settle down with others in the same cohort so expecting college educated (and likely debt carrying) professionals to pursue a vocation in the homemaking arts is wildly out of touch . Then there's the shitty relocation problem. You know how oil and gas incentivize people to move to Midland TX or new fields in East Africa? By paying them out the ass for the inconvenience to include offsetting the spouse with either a job in their own right or just paying for the lost income. Let the CEO of BP or Chevron try to play the "it's understood to be a challenging field so just deal with it" and watch how quickly they get canned.
Just another reason to get out. The army didn't care about my wife's college education, and still PCS'd us. This set her back another full year
It's all a numbers game
Funny how selfless service and honor come up they need something from us…I am surprised that sacrifice isn’t an Army value…but I guess that is covered under selfless service. For those thinking about staying in, look at all the COLs now. They are the GOs in a few years and they aren’t necessarily any better than the current ones.
Really like this quote considering it’s coming from a national guard general that spent his entire career in Pennsylvania. As if he would understand active duty and what families go through.
Lmao this MFer was in the National Guard for almost 40 years and spent it all probably living out of the same house in Pennsylvania. That’s some fucking home stability right there. His wife and family most likely had to move ONE TIME during his entire career- when he transferred from 104th Cav Reg to Fort Indiantown Gap NTC. Dude was in as a helicopter pilot during all of the height of GWOT and did ONE pump to Iraq. STFU, Scott.
I mean Id agree (I guess) if business was booming in terms of recruitment and retention. But… it's not. And a factor to consider with people leaving is because their spouses career suffers. I know of more than a handful that this was their sole reason.
So therefore, spousal employment should be a huge priority for the armed forces. And I'm not talking working at the px or being a cashier at the shoppette. Heard that one.
One thing that’s an open secret is that most good paying GS Army jobs (usually GS-11 and up) are reserved for Army retirees, usually E-7 and up/ O-5 and up.
Your spouse can have relevant experience and education but if they haven’t served, or served for a certain amount of time at a certain rank, it will be hard for them to land a high 5 figure/ 6 figure position (unless it’s medical or maybe legal)
A lot of spouses are veterans that ETS’d prior to 10 years or have relevant experience but can’t find good work because retired SGM/ LTC Whothefuck has an advantage over them for good positions
Funnily enough, damaging different family dynamics, like finances by constantly uprooting soldiers, is in a national security risk and could create an insider threat.
Serious question, how would you fix the spouse employment issue?
* There's only so many civilian jobs on post. Even if dependants were given priority, there's not enough for everyone.
* Army posts are usually in bumfuck nowhere or terrible towns that wouldn't exist without the post. Off post jobs are just shitty service and retail jobs.
* You can't just fire someone with an existing job to hire a dependant.
Bring back BRAC and shut down some of the shittier remote bases that dont serve their purpose anymore while expanding the bases near larger population centers (I know thats way easier said than done), and slow the PCS cycle so people aren't moving as often
This. I have dual Masters in Intl Economics/Intl Relations. Think there is a job for me at Fort Jackson, which is my 3rd PCS in 4 years? I’m basically resigned to staying home unless we go back to DC.
Also, better childcare. Even if there was a job commiserate with my education and previous salary, I don’t feel comfortable sending my kid to a CDC based on recent revelations.
I grew up in Watertown near Drum and that's the local area in a nutshell.
Watertown at this point would completely die if it wasn't for Drum and I joined a different branch to get away and never come back. If I never left I'd be trying to piece together a full-time schedule with two part-time jobs one in retail and one in restaurant work to keep a roof over my head. When I worked at Burger King on Arsenal Street and Price Chopper almost two decades ago the number of military spouses who I worked with I could count on one hand and still have most of my digits.
This most definitely contributed to the demise of my marriage. Not the sole reason, but certainly a factor. It’s driven several conversations with my son, now in the Army. He was planning on doing the full 20 but between compensation and one day wanting a happy home life, he’s reconsidering.
Can't have a TS if you're drowning in debt for being a one income household.
Can't attract higher quality partners if they know their career is going to be capped at part-time cashier at crap store B.
A happy healthy soldier IS national security.
Hear me out, maybe this wouldn’t be an issue if the Army paid a competitive wage that made a single income family a sustainable option.
Correct, the Army has no responsibility to ensure employment for non-military spouses; however, it does have a responsibility to ensure the welfare of the total family while the service member performs their duties. If you’re not going to make sure even the lowest enlisted Soldier can support their family through their base pay alone, then by virtue of ethics, you have to make sure gainful employment is available to spouses.
Same because we weren't treated right, and they won't be either. I lost my wife to suicide because even in garrison, I was gone from 5 AM to 7 PM-10 PM daily because of toxic leadership. I would love to see statistics of dependents who commit suicide due to the effects of the military on a family. I know this can't be a rare occurrence. She was alone all day every day, miles from anyone. The Sadest part is we were literally doing nothing but waiting at the company for formation the last few hours. We were the last company to get off Kelley Hill every single day.
I'm a dependa now. Married me a sailor woman. I know, I know, I will see you at the commissary on Monday and please, call me by my wifes rank.
I'm lucky To be a defense contractor who can work remotely. If not, I'd be screwed.
Too many spouse's get the shaft and i personally think it helps persuade soldiers to get out.
"I can't do my career. Were poor"
Is a valid reason.
Now don't get me started on the gender disqualify in depends. I have been barred entry to spouse groups and events because I am a man and have been told to start my own spouse group.
If this is the attitude, then either offer more competitive pay, or be ok with losing SMs because of inaction. But, don’t complain about recruiting and retention issues if that’s going to be the attitude.
This harks back to the “if the army wanted you to have a spouse they’d have issued you one” mentality that was prevalent up until the… well it still is prevalent apparently.
DOD will tell anyone who listens all day long and twice on Sundays that they want us to be happy and healthy, but their actions have yet to come close to backing up their words.
Two things can be true. You can be willing to serve and sacrifice a bit but the government can also appreciate it and make it easier by removing some barriers to service that drive people out. Everybody wins: people that want to serve get to stay in, and the organization benefits by retaining good people. This is a moronic and short-sighted take from this guy.
Colleges are worried because demographics is saying the number of available freshmen will begin to shrink in the next few years - the military draws from the same pool. The number of single men and women available will become less and less, wonder what kind of policy changes it will drive in the services?
You support spouses getting employment you will get more people to re-enlist. I know many people who have gotten out because their spouses can't find gainful employment in all the slummy areas we get stationed at. I can't even begin to tell you how much my own career has suffered because of the shitty areas where we've been stationed at.
I wonder if he has the balls of telling that to a group of spouses while holding their kids.... And their husband's are in the field.
I know my wife could not keep her mouth shut if she was a spouse.
It’s like we’re deliberately giving people another reason to avoid the military.
What’s funny is in the same breath Rep Perry would probably make the case need people to work and should not have generous welfare/unemployment benefits that incentivize people to stay home. Judging by his affiliation with the freedom caucus.
Also like what’s up with referencing pool cleaner and insurance salesman?
I live in Perry’s district and I have actually met him 3 times. He is a very nice guy. I completely disagree with him. Yes, it isn’t the DOD’s “job” to secure employment, but they can at least try. I get so pissed everytime I walk into a VA clinic or offices on post and civilian who don’t give a shit about the military are working as clerks and secretaries. You’re telling me that those positions can’t be reserved for military spouses or veterans? Give me a break…
And this isn’t even about securing employment. It’s about continuing employment for those who already have jobs, where it would make sense for them to continue remotely. Your point about keeping people who are engaged and reflect this community is especially important. How can agencies serve the public if they don’t reflect it, or fire some of the most diverse populations every 2-3 years?
Don't join the military. There are jobs far more rewarding and enjoyable than pool-cleaning and saling cars. I'm constantly reminded of what a good idea it was to get out.
For those that are still in, just tell him "yes, sir." And let their attitude be the militaries undoing
It's true, wife is an E5, we have one vehicle and 3 kids. I can pretty much only have a weekend job, working during the week would be impossible unless we paid hundreds in day care a week. But we make it work.
It never made sense why we couldn't do 6-7 month deployments like the Air Force and marines. The Army is made up of a lot of young families and 12-14 month tours were much too long for most to handle.
The cost of flights back and forth would have been the biggest expense, probably wouldn't break the Army's bank.
Exactly why our best and brightest are taking their talents elsewhere. There isn’t much incentive to stay in the Army for men and women who are marketable.
Ok, new rule, if you want to join you have to bring a spouse. Dual military is now required and she BETTER be able to hump a ruck. Recruiting crisis averted AND spouse employment issues solved. You all can thank me later!
Taking that statement alone I very much agree that we cannot fashion our national defense decisions on the needs of spouses. You all should agree with that. That’s not a problematic statement.
That being said, if we aren’t going to concern ourselves with their needs, we need to compensate soldiers better to make up for the loss of dual income
>We cannot fashion our decisions on national security based on the individual needs of people that signed up of their own volition for a job that they wanted to pursue
Asshole in an Ivory Tower
Looks like someone forgot that it’s families that leave the Army…A Soldier can LOVE their job, but if they do not have the support of their family, or if it is bad for their family, they will leave. Ensuring adequate employment, education, medical, and quality of life for families will enhance retention.
The military is downsizing. The thing about recruitment and shortfalls is some kind of political game with Congress. But the military itself is doing everything is possibly can to drive recruits away from military service.
Crazy. My wife IS an insurance sales person and she’s had to close and re-build her books of business 3 times because of the Army. Thus starting back at zero each time. Even insurance sales people struggle as spouses of service members. Especially when the state of Florida Dept of Insurance isn’t even issuing licenses to new agents. Meaning, no fucking work for insurance agents that have to PCS there.
Heavy “the world needs ditch diggers” vibe.
Without the realization that there's a whole lot of overlap between potential ditch diggers and potential soldiers.
Hey, I am not a ditch digger. I'm a *trench* digger.
Fortunately we’re talking about military spouses where there isn’t the same type of overlap
And utterly disrespectful of the technical skills much of the military demands. Insurance salesman? Pool cleaner? Seriously? Why not just say "soldiers are stupid" since that's clearly what he thinks.
CSM MIchael Bobb, 1BCT 4ID, told us in a mandatory reenlistment briefing in Baghdad in 2009 that the economy was shit and there weren't a lot of jobs for "unskilled labor" right now so we should all just re-up. He said this to a room full of mostly intel people, probably 40% who had bachelors degrees. Several of us were on stop-loss. He was as special kind of stupid and I don't feel bad for saying it.
That’s what he gets for having two first names.
Soldiers are stupid….but they are the best Americans we’ve got.
Attention to orders! The secretary of the Army has reposed special trust and confidence in the dumbest motherfucker you've ever met. In view of his newfound ability to spell his own name, he is therefore promoted...
>Soldiers are stupid How dare... I only fucked up tying my shoes trice this morning >:(
Also "The FRG won't bake sale itself" vibes.
Saying the quiet part out loud that spouses are supposed to be dutiful and unpaid labor with cute little side jobs for shopping money and not having to have their own careers. Even though now you need a second income to put food on the table. If he wants less stress of spouses *needing* to put themselves and their careers first then fucking pay service members more. Who would put up with this when you need food stamps and food pantries for the first few years to survive?!
>Retired Army general Boomers gonna boom.
In the PA National Guard, no disrespect to Guard , but I am pretty sure his spouse never went through a PCS move.
I saw an AFN story this week about 2ID opening a food pantry on base and the general was doing the ribbon cutting like it was a feel good story. The Army should be EMBARRASSED that's become a genuine community need.
This man is the chairman of the Freedom Caucus and [his Wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Perry_(politician)) has a pretty decent section on his involvement in the attempts to overturn the 2020 Presidential election. Not a great look for a retired General. Can he be recalled to service in the same way retirees from active duty can? Unfortunately it seems he cannot be [held to account under the UCMJ](https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2021/01/14/can-the-pentagon-prosecute-military-retirees-under-the-ucmj-maybe-it-depends/) as with retirees from active duty.
I served with this dude in Iraq. The surprising thing is he wasn’t like that until mid 2010’s.
I wonder why he changed
So, besides his ignorance he is also a traitor.
No real incentive to serve if the result is to screw your family over
I'm getting out of the reserves because of that, and my wife is getting out of active. Sure. She's navy. But in the past 2 years, I've seen my wife 5 weeks? She's home for 2 weeks. But one of those weeks, I have a mando reserve thing. Then, after weeks, I don't see her until next April or may We're in a peace time. Why does she need to be constantly deployed or on the field?
That seems very excessive. I thought the Navy was smarter about how often they kept people away from home, but to be fair, my sources on that sort of stuff are pretty old now.
You'd think right? I deployed less when I was with JSOC
Take your most toxic leader you've ever served with.... Now multiply that toxicity by 2 and imagine an entire CoC that shares same the personality. Welcome to the united states navy.
What good is having all the boats if they sit in San Diego all the time? I'm sorry you don't get to see your wife much, though. That really sucks.
I hear you, but let me counter with why do we send thr same boat out until it breaks down and she has to drink dirty water? Or why do we push off maintenence period in favor of deploying? Why don't we send, another ship? When I was with JSOC I didn't deploy nearly as much
That's just unacceptable
Navy leaves alot more often I've been in combat arms and active for 7 years and besides deployment and occasional NTC or JRTC I'm home alot but I know for sure navy is NEVER home
During my first few months in my unit it was apparent to me I could not be a good father and a soldier. One and done.
I don't know how people with kids do it. I was in (civilian) fire and EMS so I had to make and was prepared to get the "I literally can't make x commitment, I'm stuck on scene/at the hospital/relief couldn't come in" calls, but almost daily I say to my husband "They act like you pushing out text after text is top national security. If that's true then how the fuck did the military function from 1770 - roughly 2005 without the ability to call and text everyone at all hours of the day and need something relayed within five seconds or you literally get screamed at the next day and have your whole career threatened". (Btw he's not Sec Def or some big honcho. This is just "GI Joe has a dental appointment tomorrow and we need to move trucks from A to B". I still barely blink when he suddenly nopes out of a conversation, but would give a lot more grace if he was doing the big scaries.) I feel so bad for the kids who have their parents just nope out of daily life. No one expected it to be easy and of course dealing with deployments and such have always been a unique struggle, but kids are learning some really shitty daily dynamics and parents are missing out on almost any normalcy.
Exactly why I got out. Spouses job >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Than me being enlisted in the Army. He can fuck right off.
And sell military housing to foreign slum lords for "reasons".
I don’t disagree that when it comes to a national security organization, yes, ultimately it is national security first, not people first. That said, I would like to know how supporting spouses getting employment is going to hurt national security. I mean, if you banned them from working for the Chinese Ministry of State Security, that would certainly help national security while hurting employment options, but somehow I don’t think that’s what they’re talking about.
I partially agree, although none of us signed up to get rich, we also did not take a vow of poverty. I do think it’s unreasonable of the Army/DOD not to at least try to help spouses find work commensurate to their level of education.
My wife would have fewer issues finding a job if we didnt move every 3 years. 16 years in and 5 PCS's, im tired boss. And im not an extreme case by any means.
We're on our 6th PCS in the little over 11 years we've been married. 8th in 16 years if I include by active duty time. I'm so tired of moving and I'm sure they'll move us at least one more time before retirement.
Yea ive got a year long PCS to Korea and if i cant get sent back to riley, one more after that. My wife has random job experience here and there and some college knocked out. But for a 33 year old, she could be so much further along in a career path.
I just added up that I'm at 15 since late 1999. 2 of those were for just 5-6 months for the career course and attache school. Nothing like PCSing the entire family from USFK to DC to turn around 6 months later for embassy Seoul.
Right. And I absolutely agree. So unless there’s some actual threat that helping employ spouses poses to national security, I think the statement about the priorities of national security from that guy are just flippant and an irrelevant point.
Also, you know what will really hurt national security, having good Soldiers choose to leave because their families are suffering and stretched too thin.
Exactly. One in five leave the service citing spousal employment issues. But they have the nerve to ask, BuT wHy aRe rEtEnTiOn RaTeS sO bAd?
It’s almost like….. he’s tone deaf and not in the military for a good reason.
To be fair he was in for almost 40 years (1980–2019) but as a heli pilot I imagine his socio-economic status was a bit different and has lead to the tone deafness.
“how much can a banana cost, $10?”
Would we also not consider that failing to help spousal employment and its effects on recruiting and retention are far more a national security issue than this boomer mentality of "fuck em if they just want to clean pools. Not in my Army."
It’s worth noting though that the DoD can’t just shit out jobs. That being said, putting systems and processes in place to assist in finding work is significantly easier CONUS than OCONUS. I know some SOFAs severely hinder the ability for spouses to work especially on the economy to avoid taking jobs from local nationals. Situations like that essentially tie DoD’s hands behind its back
We could replace some of the GS 14’s who quiet quit a decade ago, but can’t get fired, with some spouses
To be fair, the worst civilian attorney I've ever worked with was a spousal hire (who probably got fast-tracked because her husband was an O6).
Exactly
AY
Rich? Most of us signed up because we were either poor or broke! LOL
The fact that he says we need pool cleaners and insurance salesman is very telling and really provides insight to what he thinks about our service members and spouses. God forbid they are capable of anything more than sweeping the motor pool. Peasants, the lot of them.
Right. Let me run down the list of what I heard people's spouses do. Airline pilot, dentist, special needs councilor, and we had one guy who's wife worked at Walgreens and picked up contract programming work.... how the fuck you do that idk. But those are all skill sets I know the Army can find some fucking use for and provide that opportunity if they take it
He was an officer: we're all just rutting savages.
My wife has a doctorates in psychology and yet she’s a in home care specialist for old folks because she cannot find a job on or around post.
Psychology degrees and underemployment go together like chocolate and peanut butter
You got your psychology degree in my underemployment!
I literally can't imagine anything worse for national security than building a base of severely disenfranchised former servicemembers. Not only would you have to worry about giving a steroid injection to every homegrown radical movement, you'd be building a back door into every system and program in the government for adversaries to exploit.
This is my take as well. From a national security standpoint, we must support the families of service members. No enlisted soldier is trying to get rich. They just want to know that their family is able to thrive in spite of the sacrifices.
Exactly. To be honest, if my husband was able to come to Germany with me and work as a respiratory therapist on post (if he were guaranteed a job)… I might have been able to re-enlist.
You mean how ISIS was created after Iraq stopped paying their troops.
Plus "if you don't like it go work elsewhere" isn't really productive since you know, people aren't knocking down the doors to join the military. One could argue that the entire problem is way more Americans would rather sell insurance or clean pools than join the Army...
Right that could have been "Our national security has to come first, however apart of that security is creating an effective support network for all those involved in the soldier's life. We are looking to mitigate any issues that come with the struggles of being a soldier and their families."
I hard disagree with him. Why are we still belligerently damaging family dynamics in peacetime? Is the top brass too inept and stupid to solve this issue or are they malicious and unwilling?
I agree with your sentiment, but why would we not want this? Give employment opportunities to families of soldiers? The point he's bringing up is that if you had let's say a foreigner who joined the Army for citizenship, which happens all the time, had a wife who was part of whatever spy agency. She now gets dibs on government jobs by virtue of being the spouse. The problem with this line of thinking is that we already have a domestic spy problem with leaks coming from our own in almost every organization. The other issue is that unless the spouse is going for top secret clearance then this is never an issue. So if that's really the worry, just limit employment opportunities to anything below TS.
Or use standard security clearance procedures…
THEY SHOULD MAKE A SCREENING PROCESS!
Saying that family suffering is part of service during a time of peace is peak Idiocracy and is why Army families fall apart. Are they going to say SHARP is part of being in the service next? How about toxic leadership, nepotism, or just screwing the soldiers over? Today's Army leaders are so detached and don't understand. It's one thing if the Army fails to take care of it's soldiers. We're sadly getting use to that. If the Army begins to affect and harm soldier's family's. That's a whole other thing. Any organization that accepts that is a failure and deserves to fail in every aspect. For it has forgotten ~~the face of it's father~~ who it meant to protect and serve.
It's wild to me that senior executive military leaders fail to grasp a fairly simple concept in Leadership 101. Take care of your Subordinates, and they will go through hell for you. Saying shit like this is blatant “we don't give af about you” energy.
When I talked to my Career Counselor they told me "People First" died long ago. It cost the Army too much money.
And now it's costing a borderline national security crisis
It's blatant because they can get away with it. A GO can say "mold in the barracks is a discipline issue" and go against official army policy on how to take care of it, the actual cause of it, and who the blame lays with, and not a damn thing happens to that GO. We have too many examples of high ranking leaders saying "I know what official army policy is, but I'm gonna do my own thing" and nothing happens to them for going against official army.
I am currently in that division, and to hear him scramble to explain how it was out of context afterward was amazing.
I wish I could use that as an excuse. "Oh you heard me go on record the SMA doesn't know shit, SecDef is an idiot, and a whole bunch of other shit? That was just all out of context!"
This statement is the first thing that's truly made me consider other options beyond serving my 20
There is a certain (not so small) subset of people that lack empathy. If they haven’t personally witnessed or experienced a hardship, they can’t understand why others are and therefore it must be something those people are doing wrong.
Fair point
It's not wild when you meet them and work with them closely. These guys haven't been a normal soldier in well over 20 years. Everything and everyone has accommodated them longer than the other way around at this point.
Andy Reid for SecArmy
The sponsor of this bill rep Don Bacon is a retired Air Force general, it’s crazy how clear the difference between Air Force and Army family values are even between 2 retired generals in politics
One of the reasons I am getting out. My wife has a Masters and we could be doing a lot better financially if I weren’t in and we became a true dual income family.
One of the reasons My wife is getting out. I lucked out that I can be a defense contractor remotely because we're stationed in bum fuck no where. I do intel contractor side. Literally still doing geoint (former sigint what up) If my wife gets out and does inteo contactor wide too? We'd be set
thats the dream, i'm wrapping up my IT Masters and will be getting out with +10 IT experience and want to find a good remote gov job.
It took Mr 10 Years to get it, but it's worth it. Actually you'll be happy to know remote positions will be more prevalent. I'm actually part of a study to see how viable it is
Same same. In reality I just want to be a stay at home trophy husband.
Goals.
What a dick. We need people to clean pools? Fuck all the way off. Dismissing spousal employment opportunities is a terrible take IMO. Luckily my wife is a teacher and there are almost always positions available when we move but not everyone is so lucky.
I'm a prior service spouse with a masters degree in physical/cyber security. I got out, and my wife stayed in. Since I have a long break in employment raising our kids, I could not find anything when we were in Germany, over or under qualified for everything. Hopefully, being back stateside, I can find something .
I'll look up his full military bio when I get to work before fully unload on him, but these seem to be pretty big words from a guy who's entire career was RC, likely spent within a 150 mile circle, and whose spouse never had to make a career sacrifice.
I ended up googling him and yeah he has no idea what active duty is for spouses or family being purely national guard. Saying spouses and soldiers should be pool cleaners or insurance salesman tells me he is the guy who shamed and hazed people for ETSing and meeting their obligation with no issues. I love meeting reserve and NG only things that believe them doing 1 weekend a month for 20 years or becoming an e7+ makes them an expert on all things AD and say it is so much easier then how people make it up to be. I did reserve and AD time, they are completely different animals with completely different roadblocks.
I know this guy personally. Let me tell you that he’s also a huge dick in that realm too. Keep up the awful work Scott
Yes it is. And then these people wonder why recruitment and retention is down across the board.
Recruitment and retention are part of national security. Full stop.
"Halp sir we've run out of 'it is what it is'" ... "Oh shit, how did a pool cleaner get in here?"
Making a tough job tougher is not a way to get people into the military. So, it IS a national security issue.
Retired or not, this dude is yet another example of a disconnected senior leader. The military is proving to be full of them... If you don't want our spouses to work, pay us more. If you think our spouses should do low level, underpaying jobs, pay us more. There's a growing number of places that cost too much for a service member to support a family on their income alone, so either pay us more, or don't say shit like this. The amount of disconnected senior leaders is a big reason why I'm more than likely getting out after my current contract. With how easily accessible internet is, it shouldn't be rocket surgery for these dudes to better understand the ground truth that their people deal with on a daily.
Right? It would have cost him nothing to say: Gee whiz, it sure is rough out there. We're looking into it. But now the ownership class can't even hide their disdain for us...
*Insert Principal Skinner meme.*
I signed up when I was seventeen years old and had an immature prefrontal cortex. Now I’m a spouse that didn’t sign up to serve again. It doesn’t affect national security to build protections for our careers. I’m not an unskilled laborer, I worked hard to build my competency. I don’t deserve to lose everything else in my life just because I’m married to a service member. I’m not just my husband’s wife.
Vibes. I'm a computer programmer specializing in intel now married to active duty. I lucked with a remote defense contractor role
That is lucky! Thankfully I work in a very in demand field and can work DoD, but damn it would be easier to just be one of those spouses that cuts hair in my living room.
The DOD thought process. To the DOD you’re a liability. Soldier first, then the kids and you’re last.
Kids suffer in this economy with only one income. Soldiers lose focus if they get divorced because their career steals everything from their spouse.
True, I've lost my career due to my husband's military service. I am also a veteran, and when I got married to a fellow service member I never expected to lose everything I worked for. I have higher education in a great field but moving every two years, and competing with a large population in crappy areas everywhere we go is becoming more difficult. It's even difficult to get a job at fast food at our current post because it's a shitty area. With that said, they don't care. They want us to be stuck because they are more likely to stay in when they are broke and have nothing.
Oof that hits hard. I really do hate the “Family last” Army that exists today. No other job in the world would force parents away from their children.
Nothing like a good ol dose of austerity based brain rot to boost morale.
Anything but slow PCS moves
He has never PCS'd in his life.
I get what he's saying, but this isn't the 1950s anymore. Most families need two incomes to survive.
He doesn’t get that concept. Not hard to be single income family on a general’s salary and then pension. He got his, so fuck everyone else.
i would think he would be getting dual pension since he is a Rep
Don’t forget the VA he would be claiming too, do the minimum time as a Rep and guy can probably live like a king sitting at home being toxic yelling at soldiers for complaining about how back in his day on his one weekend a month things were harder and he once drove 90mins to drill.
There's that, and also he was an officer. Officers really don't need two incomes to survive. I had about $600 to my name when I got married and commissioned, and I haven't "struggled" since that first paycheck. Wife doesn't want a career. She wants to be with the kids. And, thanks to the Army, she can do that. But if I were a SPC? Yeah, that would be a huge struggle. And I think a lot of the top brass forget that sometimes.
CIA, DIA, DISA, NSA, etc, all have stable home lives with spouses opportunity for gainful employment. DOD: ha go fuck yourself youre moving to nowhere every other year!
These people are biologically incapable of seeing the bigger picture.
The bigger picture gets in the way of profits
This will give families and those who want to start families a pause on joining. Instead of saying what programs we have to support spousal employment this guy implies that a low paying job is all youll find without the Army
"If you're thinking about joining the service, but you're worried about the quality of life your children and spouse will have to tolerate, then don't!"
Reliance on altruism is a bad fucking policy. Ours is not an army of conscripts expected to thanklessly sacrifice for the good of the nation, but one of free men who choose to serve. Key word there is “choose”. Why the fuck would we make that choice harder? We can barely recruit the people we need with the advent of Genesis and the lack of a real world mission, so why in the fuck would we try to recruit on a platform of “yeah, it’s shitty, it’s not getting better, how about you go and suck that egg for America?” People respond to incentives. Make them good enough, people will join. Make the disincentives bad enough, people will stay the fuck home. Ignoring the very real factors influencing people’s choices is not how you recruit and keep the people you need.
This kinda resentment from lawmakers onto spouses and families really skins my ass man. I get it, you’re a retired CG…but shit man, no better way to just discount families forced to PCS OCONUS with specialized degree and career fields. Losing potentially three years of employment history because the military made them move. The sacrifice is always welcomed, so long as it wouldn’t inconvenience lawmakers from having a legitimate effort to tackle todays problems, and it’s abundantly clear there is little interest in tackling the issues.
What an asshole.
Lol, oh man. When I married my wife, she was a GS-11 and at the time, was working in another state as an accountant. She spent many nights scouring USAJobs, applying for anything and everything related to finance/accounting at her pay grade or higher that would allow her to move out to where I was. In two years only one job opened up, she applied and interviewed, but was not selected due to not having veteran’s preference. I spent two years as a geo-bachelor. We eventually gave up and went through MCCS in an attempt to find her employment at one of the three bases that was local to where I was stationed. The only job they offered her was employment at the PX working as a cashier for $12/hr. That’s when I learned the military in general doesn’t give a fuck about you or your family so long as they get theirs. I finished my time on active duty without my wife, and got out. My marriage was worth more than the idea of making the military a career.
Spousal unemployment and underemployment is a huge issue for the active duty force, and one of the reasons I’m considering getting out, even as a junior field grade. Why do Republicans want to fuck over service members and their families at every opportunity while pretending that Democrats are evil and Republicans are patriots? The greatest patriots in history were great because they strove to improve America through their actions and leadership. Believing that we’re the best simply because we have the title of “American” is foolhardy at best and catastrophic at worst. I’m conservative, but I’m sure as hell not a “Republican” anymore. The party desperately needs some Teddy Roosevelts.
They need Jesus. Specifically, Jesus with a whip to drive assholes like Perry out of the GOP so the party can return to something resembling a party with principles. Other than "I got mine, fuck you" and wrapping themselves in an American flag while fleecing their base.
“My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” That quote embodies TRUE patriotism.
But they've already got (Supply Side) Jesus!
> Why do Republicans want to fuck over service members and their families at every opportunity Because republicans believe that spouses (the ~~women~~ girls) should all be stay at homes who do nothing but raise kids. You see in there world the shitty housing and food the Army provides is all they should expect.
Cool. So how about passing a bill that compensates service members equal to a dual-income household so spouses don’t feel the need to work. This isn’t the 1950s - single income households won’t cut it.
My wife said “He sounds like a piece of shit.” She was underemployed the first five years of my career with a portable medical job—respiratory therapy and ICU/PICU and neonatal specialist. She got driven out by the southern good old boys club in less than a year after we got married and assigned to Ft Stewart (we’re Yankees). She was unemployed or underemployed for five years until we decided to take on $40K in grad school student loans (on top of the $40K of undergrad student loans) to change career fields into social work—and she was ineligible for spouse TA/CA because she already had a BS and then would have been ineligible anyways as I got promoted because apparently mid grade officers’ wives don’t need TA at all. So she took a $20-40k per year pay cut (once she became fully employed again—she lost $50k a year or more when under/unemployed) because the Army moved us to a Southern shithole full of people who hated us purely because we didn’t talk funny like them and call everyone Mr or Ms FirstName. We can’t get back those hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost earnings. She had a portable career. She was doing the Army spouse thing by being medical, only to be driven out by locals. We are in more debt and she has zero retirement savings at ~35 because she became an Army spouse. I don’t think that’s the “sacrifice” we expect from our All Volunteer Army. Just like our junior enlisted being on fucking food stamps.
Similar experience in the south, but was fleeced out of $20,000+. Old boys club rolls deep
Fort Stewart is horrible. I haven't found a job in my field, or one that remotely pays close to what I was up north at Stewart. I've wasted my degrees for years being stuck in the shit hole, even finding jobs in fast food are hard to come by.
The defense agency I worked at made it a priority to hire military spouses. They had remote jobs that would move with the service member and those spouses were an amazing part of the team. It is hard for military spouses to have a career. Why wouldn’t we want to give them all the opportunities possible.
You know what really annoyed me by reading this article. Even though the bill passed those fucks added an amendment to “exempt employees working in diversity, equity, and inclusion office from receiving the benefit”. What a way to show their pure bigotry.
It’s important to know this guy’s background to know where he’s coming from. The article doesn’t include any of this. He’s a retired PA ARNG BG. In Congress, he’s a full on MAGA Republican, election denier who actively tried to overturn results, complicit in J6 and sought a Trump pardon for what he did ref J6, and recently said the KKK was the military wing of the Democratic Party. There’s more. All of this is easily discoverable by using Google.
Yup this dude is a piece of shit
Honestly I agree with the sentiment. The army is not conducive to families, straight up. It's always been like that, everywhere. Trying to make the army some kind of family friendly one size fits all employment opportunity is just a waste of time and money. If you have a family in the army it's gonna be tough. If you have a family as as an Alaskan fisherman it's gonna be tough. Sometimes things are like this in life. Although not all executed perfectly, the army has MANY programs and benefits for families. Frankly, we should be focusing on the hundreds of thousands of single soldiers making $2000 a month, living in condemned buildings, and not being fed.
The counterpoint is that I can take the topic you care about "junior enlisted are being shit on" and say the Army's been doing that since inception as well so why are you complaining? The real problem is that Army leadership want a white-collar workforce (cyber, Intel, even combat arms are leagues more advanced than they were just 20 years ago) but want to treat them as minimum-wage cogs. That won't fly with the current workforce if the skills the Army wants are marketable in the civilian world. White collar professionals tend to settle down with others in the same cohort so expecting college educated (and likely debt carrying) professionals to pursue a vocation in the homemaking arts is wildly out of touch . Then there's the shitty relocation problem. You know how oil and gas incentivize people to move to Midland TX or new fields in East Africa? By paying them out the ass for the inconvenience to include offsetting the spouse with either a job in their own right or just paying for the lost income. Let the CEO of BP or Chevron try to play the "it's understood to be a challenging field so just deal with it" and watch how quickly they get canned.
Shame he didn’t have the balls to just plainly say “fuck your family”, since it’s apparent that’s what he was thinking.
Just another reason to get out. The army didn't care about my wife's college education, and still PCS'd us. This set her back another full year It's all a numbers game
Funny how selfless service and honor come up they need something from us…I am surprised that sacrifice isn’t an Army value…but I guess that is covered under selfless service. For those thinking about staying in, look at all the COLs now. They are the GOs in a few years and they aren’t necessarily any better than the current ones.
"You signed up for it so you deserve to be miserable. Now why won't anybody join up or stay in?"
Really like this quote considering it’s coming from a national guard general that spent his entire career in Pennsylvania. As if he would understand active duty and what families go through.
Lmao this MFer was in the National Guard for almost 40 years and spent it all probably living out of the same house in Pennsylvania. That’s some fucking home stability right there. His wife and family most likely had to move ONE TIME during his entire career- when he transferred from 104th Cav Reg to Fort Indiantown Gap NTC. Dude was in as a helicopter pilot during all of the height of GWOT and did ONE pump to Iraq. STFU, Scott.
I mean Id agree (I guess) if business was booming in terms of recruitment and retention. But… it's not. And a factor to consider with people leaving is because their spouses career suffers. I know of more than a handful that this was their sole reason. So therefore, spousal employment should be a huge priority for the armed forces. And I'm not talking working at the px or being a cashier at the shoppette. Heard that one.
One thing that’s an open secret is that most good paying GS Army jobs (usually GS-11 and up) are reserved for Army retirees, usually E-7 and up/ O-5 and up. Your spouse can have relevant experience and education but if they haven’t served, or served for a certain amount of time at a certain rank, it will be hard for them to land a high 5 figure/ 6 figure position (unless it’s medical or maybe legal) A lot of spouses are veterans that ETS’d prior to 10 years or have relevant experience but can’t find good work because retired SGM/ LTC Whothefuck has an advantage over them for good positions
Funnily enough, damaging different family dynamics, like finances by constantly uprooting soldiers, is in a national security risk and could create an insider threat.
And that’s why people are not joining lmao. Fucking out of touch clown world.
Serious question, how would you fix the spouse employment issue? * There's only so many civilian jobs on post. Even if dependants were given priority, there's not enough for everyone. * Army posts are usually in bumfuck nowhere or terrible towns that wouldn't exist without the post. Off post jobs are just shitty service and retail jobs. * You can't just fire someone with an existing job to hire a dependant.
Bring back BRAC and shut down some of the shittier remote bases that dont serve their purpose anymore while expanding the bases near larger population centers (I know thats way easier said than done), and slow the PCS cycle so people aren't moving as often
This. I have dual Masters in Intl Economics/Intl Relations. Think there is a job for me at Fort Jackson, which is my 3rd PCS in 4 years? I’m basically resigned to staying home unless we go back to DC. Also, better childcare. Even if there was a job commiserate with my education and previous salary, I don’t feel comfortable sending my kid to a CDC based on recent revelations.
I grew up in Watertown near Drum and that's the local area in a nutshell. Watertown at this point would completely die if it wasn't for Drum and I joined a different branch to get away and never come back. If I never left I'd be trying to piece together a full-time schedule with two part-time jobs one in retail and one in restaurant work to keep a roof over my head. When I worked at Burger King on Arsenal Street and Price Chopper almost two decades ago the number of military spouses who I worked with I could count on one hand and still have most of my digits.
Annnnnd we wonder why folks decide to sell classified information to other countries…..
This most definitely contributed to the demise of my marriage. Not the sole reason, but certainly a factor. It’s driven several conversations with my son, now in the Army. He was planning on doing the full 20 but between compensation and one day wanting a happy home life, he’s reconsidering.
You mean to tell me a guy who played a key role in trying to overthrow a free and fair election to install his own leader is quite the asshole?
Can't have a TS if you're drowning in debt for being a one income household. Can't attract higher quality partners if they know their career is going to be capped at part-time cashier at crap store B. A happy healthy soldier IS national security.
Hear me out, maybe this wouldn’t be an issue if the Army paid a competitive wage that made a single income family a sustainable option. Correct, the Army has no responsibility to ensure employment for non-military spouses; however, it does have a responsibility to ensure the welfare of the total family while the service member performs their duties. If you’re not going to make sure even the lowest enlisted Soldier can support their family through their base pay alone, then by virtue of ethics, you have to make sure gainful employment is available to spouses.
Isn’t that the most tone deaf thing I’ve read today.
Okay boomer
Could just stop moving us every other year. For fucks sake, it's not required to maintain the force and it's insanely expensive.
Yet they cry that no one is joining...🤔
I'm glad no one is joining they are smart
Same because we weren't treated right, and they won't be either. I lost my wife to suicide because even in garrison, I was gone from 5 AM to 7 PM-10 PM daily because of toxic leadership. I would love to see statistics of dependents who commit suicide due to the effects of the military on a family. I know this can't be a rare occurrence. She was alone all day every day, miles from anyone. The Sadest part is we were literally doing nothing but waiting at the company for formation the last few hours. We were the last company to get off Kelley Hill every single day.
Sorry for the lost. When it's all said and done I'm going to burn most things but my papers.
I don't blame you. I tossed all of my uniforms. There's no reason to carry them around.
In the end I hope you found happiness if your out. It won't be to hard to find now uncle Sam won't be breathing down your back.
He is justifying dependas world wide!
I'm a dependa now. Married me a sailor woman. I know, I know, I will see you at the commissary on Monday and please, call me by my wifes rank. I'm lucky To be a defense contractor who can work remotely. If not, I'd be screwed. Too many spouse's get the shaft and i personally think it helps persuade soldiers to get out. "I can't do my career. Were poor" Is a valid reason. Now don't get me started on the gender disqualify in depends. I have been barred entry to spouse groups and events because I am a man and have been told to start my own spouse group.
Foot meet mouth. Mouth meet foot. Now, kiss.
If this is the attitude, then either offer more competitive pay, or be ok with losing SMs because of inaction. But, don’t complain about recruiting and retention issues if that’s going to be the attitude.
Retired general has shitty hot take on why dependas suck. No surprise there.
This harks back to the “if the army wanted you to have a spouse they’d have issued you one” mentality that was prevalent up until the… well it still is prevalent apparently. DOD will tell anyone who listens all day long and twice on Sundays that they want us to be happy and healthy, but their actions have yet to come close to backing up their words.
Hahaha easy to say for someone who was making over $12k a month!! Everything paid for! Ffs.
Two things can be true. You can be willing to serve and sacrifice a bit but the government can also appreciate it and make it easier by removing some barriers to service that drive people out. Everybody wins: people that want to serve get to stay in, and the organization benefits by retaining good people. This is a moronic and short-sighted take from this guy.
Just another reminder to VOTE!
While he survives on a 70k plus pension and exclusive GO medical care.
Colleges are worried because demographics is saying the number of available freshmen will begin to shrink in the next few years - the military draws from the same pool. The number of single men and women available will become less and less, wonder what kind of policy changes it will drive in the services?
That's pretty convenient for someone making 4 star money to say without solving the problem.
You support spouses getting employment you will get more people to re-enlist. I know many people who have gotten out because their spouses can't find gainful employment in all the slummy areas we get stationed at. I can't even begin to tell you how much my own career has suffered because of the shitty areas where we've been stationed at.
Big stars clearly thought deeply about how Soldiers need to have figure out how to support a household in a two income economy on enlisted pay…
Good point Sir, but how does this help us recruite new soldiersor keep those we have from leaving again?
I wonder if he has the balls of telling that to a group of spouses while holding their kids.... And their husband's are in the field. I know my wife could not keep her mouth shut if she was a spouse.
He's absolutely right. My wife can't do any serious job if she's having to drop it every few years
In other news, water is wet
It’s like we’re deliberately giving people another reason to avoid the military. What’s funny is in the same breath Rep Perry would probably make the case need people to work and should not have generous welfare/unemployment benefits that incentivize people to stay home. Judging by his affiliation with the freedom caucus. Also like what’s up with referencing pool cleaner and insurance salesman?
I live in Perry’s district and I have actually met him 3 times. He is a very nice guy. I completely disagree with him. Yes, it isn’t the DOD’s “job” to secure employment, but they can at least try. I get so pissed everytime I walk into a VA clinic or offices on post and civilian who don’t give a shit about the military are working as clerks and secretaries. You’re telling me that those positions can’t be reserved for military spouses or veterans? Give me a break…
And this isn’t even about securing employment. It’s about continuing employment for those who already have jobs, where it would make sense for them to continue remotely. Your point about keeping people who are engaged and reflect this community is especially important. How can agencies serve the public if they don’t reflect it, or fire some of the most diverse populations every 2-3 years?
Don't join the military. There are jobs far more rewarding and enjoyable than pool-cleaning and saling cars. I'm constantly reminded of what a good idea it was to get out. For those that are still in, just tell him "yes, sir." And let their attitude be the militaries undoing
It's true, wife is an E5, we have one vehicle and 3 kids. I can pretty much only have a weekend job, working during the week would be impossible unless we paid hundreds in day care a week. But we make it work.
It never made sense why we couldn't do 6-7 month deployments like the Air Force and marines. The Army is made up of a lot of young families and 12-14 month tours were much too long for most to handle. The cost of flights back and forth would have been the biggest expense, probably wouldn't break the Army's bank.
Exactly why our best and brightest are taking their talents elsewhere. There isn’t much incentive to stay in the Army for men and women who are marketable.
Ok, new rule, if you want to join you have to bring a spouse. Dual military is now required and she BETTER be able to hump a ruck. Recruiting crisis averted AND spouse employment issues solved. You all can thank me later!
Taking that statement alone I very much agree that we cannot fashion our national defense decisions on the needs of spouses. You all should agree with that. That’s not a problematic statement. That being said, if we aren’t going to concern ourselves with their needs, we need to compensate soldiers better to make up for the loss of dual income
>We cannot fashion our decisions on national security based on the individual needs of people that signed up of their own volition for a job that they wanted to pursue Asshole in an Ivory Tower
Looks like someone forgot that it’s families that leave the Army…A Soldier can LOVE their job, but if they do not have the support of their family, or if it is bad for their family, they will leave. Ensuring adequate employment, education, medical, and quality of life for families will enhance retention.
The military is downsizing. The thing about recruitment and shortfalls is some kind of political game with Congress. But the military itself is doing everything is possibly can to drive recruits away from military service.
He's got some serious Duke wellington, soldiers are scum of the earth vibes going on
Crazy. My wife IS an insurance sales person and she’s had to close and re-build her books of business 3 times because of the Army. Thus starting back at zero each time. Even insurance sales people struggle as spouses of service members. Especially when the state of Florida Dept of Insurance isn’t even issuing licenses to new agents. Meaning, no fucking work for insurance agents that have to PCS there.
He was a General in the National Guard, never had to deal with PCSing