Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Promotion rates vary year to year, only a couple of years ago MOST naval aviators failed to select for O4. A lot of career bound officers were suddenly asking about the airlines.
The only way O4 would get anywhere near 95% would be in a really crappy MOS with a really good economy.
Cops and firefighters generally get pretty good pensions while still young. They can quit any time they choose, and get to go home at the end of each shift.. all they need is a HS diploma. They don't need Masters degrees in policy or computer science, nor would they want them. I think they have a pretty good deal, and where I live it's very competitive to get hired... so other people think so too.
Doesn't change the fact that you are totally misrepresenting the facts.
Actually, RIGHT NOW the promotion rate to O-4 approaches 100%. At least in the Air Force.
Air Force announces 100 percent promotion opportunity to major > U.S. Air Force > Article Display
But that absolutely changes constantly with the market. Before 15 years of fighting stupid - trying to win the hearts and minds of people whose culture absolutely doesn't care about such things - the numbers were very different.
When I was first in the Air Force I recall a TSgt who worked in base ops who wore Senior Pilot wings. About three months later, the base had a retirement ceremony for those on that base retiring that month and there he was, wearing a LTC uniform. The story was that he had started out as everyone's fair haired boy, making both O-4 and O-3 below the zone, before getting crosswise with some senior officer, which lead to him being passed over twice before eligible for retirement. With only a couple years to go, he opted to take the reduction to SSGT to remain on active duty. He made TSgt before he had his 20 years in and of course ultimately retired at the highest rank he satisfactorily had served (O-5).
Typically firemen and police can retire at twenty years service, on 50% of the average of their last 2-3 years pay, which can be seriously increased by working overtime and cashing in unused sick pay and vacation during the last couple years. By only modestly gaming the system, they can get their pension up to about 70% of their actual last working salary! oftentimes inflation adjusted. They also typically get lifetime medical care.
It's also sort of a misrepresentation to claim that police and fire personnel have risky jobs. They really don't. They have difficult and often unpleasant jobs but they are rarely if ever anywhere near the top 10 in the Bureau of Labor Statistics annual lists of occupational injuries and deaths and in many states we lose more police to on the job MVAs due to high speed pursuits than die from any other single cause. Typically, ranchers and farmers and, yes, even airline pilots have a higher rate of on the job fatalities, although those "airline pilots" tend to actually be air ambulance pilots if you dig into the stats.
But yeah, if you are going to be career military you accept the fact that for at least 20 years of your life you are going to go where you are told to go and do what you are told to do and that if the proverbial $heiss hits the turbine blades you are considered expendable. Anyone who thinks it's an easy life ought to try it for twenty years.