"Military Pay Outpaces Civilians. Is it justified?" article

Your title question and the question in your poll are total opposites, which confused me.

My answers are NO they are not paid too much, and YES, their pay is justified.

I read the article. No, military personnel are not paid enough to put themselves in harm's way. It is also shameful that the injured are not receiving immediate world class health care VA benefits. This Country owes our Veteran's but we would rather have illegal immigrants cross over our borders and take care of them first. Shameful.

As the wife of a Desert Storm combat Vet, I certainly don't think the military is overpaid. My husband is still and forever will be dealing with the effects of his years in the Army. 

Since October my husband had worked until 8 pm almost every day of the week that the ship was in port. He had had 2 weekends off in 2014. He's on Rimpac for 2 months, then comes home long enough to train his replacement then heads out to his next assignment on a ship that will be deployed.

He spent half of Mikeys first 4 years deployed. He just got back last April from training across the country - unaccompanied for almost a year. The way things worked out we had to pay rent on two places

It wouldn't be quite as bad if he was working with weapons systems since he knows those inside and out. On shore duty he was flying around the world to work on training ships. 18/20 years working on weapons systems but they make him a chief engineer because he made the mistake of getting some qualifications early. That will teach him.

Meanwhile the Navy is doing more with less. Surge deployments out for 7 month in for 5 then back out again. They used to have a year in between deployments. My husband's department is 80% staffed. Since October they've had 5 major inspections.

The knowledge loss is incredible. It's harder and harder to retain qualified people. They go off for better paying jobs in the civilian world.

And then there's the lower benefits. Oh yeah the house we bought to retire in up in Oregon - not gonna happen since in 2007 the rules for tricare for retirees changed and you must now live within a certain distance from a base to be eligible. And then there was the switch to uhc last year. That was a fucking nightmare. Uhc couldn't get referrals processed so the military had a 2 month free for all with referrals. Sadly the paperwork for the iud I wanted got lost and my referral was sent to the Navy hospital instead of my obgyn who had already done the ground work because "they had capacity". Never mind that the obgyn is 5 miles from my house and balboa is 35 miles... And then they said we are booking 3-4 months out because we are only staffed 2 days a week because of budget cuts. So here I am - still suffering with the monthly csi scene in my pants being told that they want me to go in for a third pelvic exam - after my regular doctor and obgyn had both done one - screaming at them over the phone "how many people need to stick their hands in my vagina before I can get the damn iud". Apparently the cost savings method worked - I never got it. I won't lie, menopause would be a welcome relief now.

And then there's the toll on everything - relationships - the stress is killing our relationship and we haven't had the time to make things right in years. Family life - I hate thinking about the damage this is doing to my kids. And overall health - my husband could not get off the ship to see a dentist and wound up losing a tooth that could have been saved. He's gained 30 pounds and the doctor says he needs blood pressure pills and anti depressants. If he gets good happy pills he needs to share them.

So 16 hour work days, no time off (we are looking at him taking 7 days leave this year but was told he may need to come in) lack of access to medical care, stress and crappy family life and a total of 6 weekends off the entire year if they don't fall on his duty day every 6 days - tell me again how the pay is outpacing civilian pay???