I assure you that whatever you think is sacred can be taken away with the stroke of a pen. Now that only about 1% of the population actually serves in the military, you don't think someone isn't already doing the algebra to find out how much they really need that voting block vs. trading it for the loyalty of some other segment of society that carries more votes?

This.

I too think it'll be a bit before any changes. I also think anyone currently serving will be grandfathered in. And it will start small- higher tricare co-pays, lower COLA adjustments, etc. We've already seen the surveys about how younger generations would prefer a 401k type plan to the pension... where the majority of folks who serve but don't stay for an entire career will still get "something". Eventually it'll change so that you can retire after 20 years of service (or maybe less), but not collect until you're 60 or whatever. Match the guard/reserves. There's already a dwindling incentive to stay to 20 when you still have 20+ years of working age after your mil retirement to think about. Zero incentive to stay if you have to start a new career without the pension to provide health care and a mortgage payment backing you up.

Yes, it would fundamentally change retention across the military. I don't particularly think our "leaders" really give two $#!+s. And maybe that's a good thing- maybe we as a nation need to get away from the military as a career. But that's a different conversation.

To tie it back to the original poster... I'd take the retirement and run. Good luck.

That's hilarious... and I just now realized you're Navy. Is it really that different from the Air Force??

Sure, but the majority of Americans are not pure-blooded "takers"...most of middle America will not respond well to a wholesale breaking of faith with military members, who are generally considered in higher regard than congress, politicians, corporations, and cops.

If things got bad enough then yeah anything could happen but it looks like peak oil has been averted for a few more decades at least and I can't think of anything else that's likely to put us into a Mad Max scenario. Although the boomer retirement wave is a concern... they're definitely going to want somebody to pay for their social security ponzi scheme. But since the military retirements cross generational lines AARP et al may be reluctant to touch a politically charged issue that will affect or resonate with a lot of their own people. While only 1% serve now, if you look at the retired demographic it's probably a lot closer to 50%.

IMO first-term military members get sweet education benefits instead of retirement vesting, and it should stay that way.

The cliff-vesting could be adjusted after that, but what's fundamentally necessary to maintain our military strength is that we have young people who have an incentive to work their butts off for 15, 20, 25 years and then get discarded right about the time they start to lose their youthful vigor. They have to know they're going VFR-direct to a soup kitchen.

You could accomplish that with a "transition" benefit immediately following separation/retirement which would start large and taper off after a few years and eventually switch back on after age 60-ish.

401k sounds nice to folks who don't know much but it would suck if you hit HYT or some force-shaping initiative when the market and economy happened to be down.

As technology drives ever-more-complex weapons (and systems of weapons) we are going to need more, not fewer, people to stay in longer.

In the Navy you routinely deploy with your unit. But for individual augmentations (ie 365), which often occur on a shore tour (supposed to "down time" from sea duty) they have policy to keep folks from getting sent back again and again while other folks haven't even had a first serving.

I was Navy, now AF.

No contest...punch as soon as you get hired. It's only 2.5% of base pay per year all the while giving up hundreds/thousands of seniority numbers and the pay that goes along with them.. That's a small amount compared to the $$ you can make at a major. As a point of reference I'm a retired O4 on 2nd year pay at a major. Between O4 retirement pay, airline pay, 16% company retirement pay, and per diem/add pay I made $16,000+ in December. Could not even come close to that as an O5 or O6. Maybe as an O7. And all for a job that is 1,000% easier than my O4 job was.

$.02.

Cheers,

HT

Also consider the maxim that "past performance is no guarantee of future results." Translation- Just because someone hired in 2014 upgraded to Captain in 5-7 years is no guarantee that a 2018 new hire will enjoy an identical upgrade time. Indeed, sometimes one year has made a difference between upgrading in 5 years, versus 10 or more years.

As others have pointed out, quality of life is an important consideration. It isn't too difficult to visualize four years making a difference between being able to hold a desirable domicile or not. Would you rather spend a 10 year window being a junior narrowbody crewmember in a tough commute domicile, or spend it as a senior widebody crewmember living in your choice domicile ?

Well, you're in a different AF than I was (retired a year & a half ago) if a recent 365 in any way, shape, or form means that deployments are "off the table"....

As most here are saying, my advice remains the same: punch now, not later. Good luck either way!