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3 hours ago

Good afternoon from Amersfoort, NL

Oh, the things Robert digs up! Read on—

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Charting Up
ROBERT DUCHEMIN SR
APR 13

Next year the United States government will spend about $70 billion on retirement benefits for former military personnel and their survivors. This includes paying 100% of their healthcare costs. In 2007, that bill was only $43 billion.

According to a 2024 congressional report, the current retirement structure for all branches of the United States military has been in place “since the 1800s” because it meets the four objectives of the military retirement system:

“To keep the military forces of the United States young and vigorous and ensure promotion opportunities for younger members,

To enable the Armed Forces to remain competitive with private-sector employers and the federal Civil Service,

To provide a reserve pool of experienced military manpower that can be called upon in time of war or national emergency to augment active forces, and

To provide economic security for former members of the Armed Forces during their old age. . .”

Basically, for any service less than 20 years, there is no retirement benefit. After 20 years, servicemen receive 2.5% of the average of their pay for their three highest-paid years of service. (Someone retiring at 20 years gets 50% of their salary; someone retiring at 25 years gets 62.5% of their salary.)

If someone is disabled while serving, however, they get their full pay from the date of their disability. That is logical and appropriate, especially if someone has lost a limb and/or is otherwise paralyzed. It also is appropriate if somebody is so severely affected with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that they cannot hold down a job.

Unfortunately, however, the disability provision has become the most abused military benefit. It is the primary reason why the cost of providing retirement benefits for military personnel has skyrocketed. It has become so common that military personnel in all branches of service have adopted the term “charting up.“

About two to three years before intended retirement (most commonly, 20 years) a sailor or soldier will start complaining of some ailment. For those who have seen combat, the inability to sleep through the night, waking up with nightmares in a pool of sweat, and becoming anxious is one of the most common claims. They then start having difficulty concentrating during the day, something about which they do not hesitate to inform their superior officer. The closer they get to their retirement target, the worse the problem gets.

What they are doing is padding their records so that their medical record is filled with years of reports of an uncured illness. A very dependable confidential source told me “the scuttlebutt is once you chart up your file enough, the military doctors will flag you for permanent disability so you can enhance your retirement income,” often to 100%.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimates that some years as much as 70% of disability retirement benefits are paid on fraudulent claims. Their estimates are based on the same actuarial formulae that are used by private insurance companies.

The difference is that private insurance companies do something about it. The OMB simply provides the decision makers with the information. Congressmen run from it because they don’t want to be seen as if they are attacking disabled military personnel.

For those of us who live in the real world, there is a much better way to look at it. Eventually, Congress is going to have to cut military retirement benefits because the United States cannot continue to pay out this much money every year. The people who are filing fake claims are traitors to their fellow soldiers and sailors who actually have legitimate claims and need them money.

This may come sooner than you think. There are proposals being shopped around Congress to reduce military disability benefits to a maximum of 75% of the average last three years of pay. Twice in the last thirty years Congress has tried to change the military retirement pay structure. Both times were abject failures. The only good way to cut the expense is to weed-out the fraud.

This would be much easier than people think. If somebody has a permanent disability claim against an insurance company, the insurance company has a private investigator look into them from time to time to determine whether they should terminate coverage. Many of the former soldiers who have soft-tissue or PTSD military disability claims quickly obtain private employment. (Two incomes are better than one). Once one leaves the military on disability, the military rarely if ever looks at the issue again.

I know of people collecting disability retirement benefits who play on softball teams and flag-football team teams. Some begin second careers that are often more profitable than their military careers. Yet they still all receive checks from the United States government. Every month. With cost-of-living increases.

One person bragged to me that he now receives almost twice as much as his military pay because of the cost-of-living increases. Wow! Not only do you get a paycheck without any accountability but you get built-in raises as well. I can see why the devil corrupts so many people with this scheme.

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Unfortunately, charting up their military records is not the only scheme that is costing our Pentagon billions of dollars a year. Married enlisted personnel receive about $1,500 per month more than unmarried personnel. In many cases, they also are permitted to live off base. This has caused military personnel to enter into sham marriages to get an increase in pay. Often the marriages are between two military personnel.

If you know anybody considering this encourage them not to. The Pentagon is prosecuting hundreds of military personnel every month for fraudulent marriages.

For pentagon prosecutors this is low-hanging fruit. Many of these marriages are same-sex marriages. Pentagon investigators note on the social-media pages of these personnel (or more likely their non-enlisted “spouse”) that they are dating someone else. Within weeks, the soldier is out of the military with a stain on their record that will destroy their careers for the rest of their lives. All that for a little bit of extra money.

Going after the sham marriages, however, will never recover enough money to make a difference. Most of these people are not career soldiers anyway. All prosecuting them does is make the prosecutors feel like they are earning their pay. Meanwhile, the dishonest servicemen who have the fortitude to chart up their medical records are costing us billions and billions of dollars, every year, for decades.

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