Originally Posted by
hindsight2020
Indeed. Look, basically people are speaking the quiet parts out loud in here, and some are gonna get miffed about it. It's not that surprising, in what is essentially is a MLOA echo chamber.
It's an open secret, it's discussed widely in reserve circles, and I personally have no particular motivation to put effort in ensuring civi only pilots never become aware of the practice. It's a legal loophole plain and simple, and good bad or indifferent, it's the law. But as you said, people should also have the freedom to be critical of it without being accused of lack of patriotism. I'll be the first one to push back on that "you can't be critical of the military as a civilian" canard.
On a personal level, the one thing I have the most objection to is the VA disability payment and rating abuse. This encompasses more than pilots mind you, it's an at-large national problem imo but I digress.
I do think current MLOA benefit retainment allowances is ripe for abuse; it is abused, and it's legal. That's my opinion of course, which doesn't matter. For whatever it's worth, there are other ways of splitting the middle on this issue without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. IMO, if USERRA protected seniority accrual, but did not protect longevity pay accrual, this problem would vanish overnight. I think that would be a reasonable compromise. I can hear the blood curling screech from the MLOA bat caves though. Not my fight, just saying there's other ways to do this without creating polarization. To each their own.
This is how you make an argument, people. I still disagree, but this is infinitely more thought provoking and defensible than “the military doesn’t protect us” and “the military is, like, just a political arm of the government, man.”
A few things: As long as the person on mil leave is performing mil duty in any capacity, there is no “abuse” taking place. And for the vast majority of guard/reserve pilots, taking mil leave is a very bad deal. I take a significant pay cut every time I have to drop mil. So I’m working harder and making less money, and I don’t know of very many people for whom this isn’t the case.
Lastly, even if you think it’s being abused (it’s not), and even if you think it’s unfair (debatable at best), it’s a known quantity to everyone going in. My main point of contention is that no one should be criticizing someone for exercising a right that is known to everyone. You can criticize the policy, but don’t blame someone when they utilize it, especially when that person has made personal sacrifices for the good of their fellow citizens. You know, don’t hate the player and all that.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk