The US is pretty terrible to their armed forces - but they're quite nice to the R&D side of the military, because that's the side that's in competition with private industry.
It's less expensive than private health care, but it's not free, and it doesn't cover everything, and it's standard government run bullshit. And it goes away as soon as you become medicare eligible and you have to go on medicare.
There are benefits to serving, but troops are not well compensated compared to the work performed. I'd also be interested in what you think the job market looks like for someone who has spent twenty years in a combat arms MOS. Most of the officers wind up well-prepared for management roles, but I don't know any enlisted retirees who didn't have a hard time transitioning.
Interestingly, the last one served ~2 weeks before receiving a medical discharge due to complications from a high-school football injury. He graduate high school, did practically nothing for two years before enlisting. Comes back a month later a veteran with a medical discharge and is getting multiple job offers.
Granted, special forces is pretty difficult to get into, you have to be smart and physically capable. So I'm sure there's a healthy amount of selection bias going on there. People capable of getting into the SF are generally capable of excelling anywhere.
Sounds fishy to me.
Re-enlistment bonuses in the SEALs can be as high as 6 figures...
There is, in fairness, a difference.
My understanding is that the SOF and SEALs get paid well, even as enlisted folks (who get paid less than officers), but why settle for an adequate paycheck when you can have a kick-ass one? Doubly so, since the kinds of people who become Spec Ops are hyper-motivated and deliver results.
Its great if you can get through the interview process at some place decent (I did for the record).
But that's like saying "I'll just go play for the NBA".
Competition is stiff
I was merely pointing out that it is muuuuuch more difficult than that comment made it seem.
Wait, what?
- You may not smoke marijuana - it violates federal law.
- You are required to regularly report on close contact with foreign nationals, though I'm not sure a casual hookup meets that criteria. But if you're in an ongoing sexual relationship with a foreign national the Feds will want to know.
It was new information to me but supports your idea.
[0]: I'm not saying we shouldn't have a welfare state, it's clearly necessary in the modern world, but the America of today is nothing like the America that was intended, for better or for worse.
I think the whole idea of the US being the world's most powerful country and acting outside our borders would have been something the founders would have struggled with, because they fought a war to get away from the world's most powerful country.
And a permanent, standing, large, and fairly dysfunctional (look at descriptions of military leadership and its civilian oversight in WWII and earlier, then look at same in Vietnam, then look at the linked Afghanistan Papers documents in this thread re: same in Iraq and Afghanistan) US military is even newer, only 80ish years. Even more recent if you consider its modern form to have taken shape only after the Vietnam draft ended.
I wonder if the civil war counts here.
I think it's very likely that entities like drug cartels already pay for things like location data for DEA agent's cellphones.
Unfortunately professional armies fail the one test that matters these days, which is the number of opportunities they provide for private actors to siphon money into their own pockets. So we have decided to ignore the lessons of history, because private profit today is worth social collapse tomorrow.
It won't stop everyone, but done correctly it could stem the most egregious of revolving doors.
And then very quickly figured out that the "drug cartel" bit was the easy part and they got rid of their employers rather quickly.
The whole Zetas story is a fascinating one. If only their employers had read The Prince:
"Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy. The fact is, they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you. They are ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not make war, but if war comes they take themselves off or run from the foe; which I should have little trouble to prove, for the ruin of Italy has been caused by nothing else than by resting all her hopes for many years on mercenaries, and although they formerly made some display and appeared valiant amongst themselves, yet when the foreigners came they showed what they were. Thus it was that Charles, King of France, was allowed to seize Italy with chalk in hand;"