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A Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey left the Marines after 12 years on account of his disagreement with his own and his comrades' war crimes against civilians in Iraq. He told the Sacramento Bee that he left the Marines at the end of 2003 after evaluating his involvement in the shooting of several innocent civilians. In passing, Massey said something revealing to his sergeant major about the causes of loyalty: "'I don't want your money. I don't want your benefits. What you did was wrong.'"(1) Massey's statement shows something that military personnel have to consider before giving up their loyalty to imperialism. Massey gave some examples of the kind of thing the Marines were doing in Iraq, "There was an incident with one of the cars. We shot an individual with his hands up. He got out of the car. He was badly shot. We lit him up. I don't know who started shooting first."(1) Massey added that the Marines never found any weapons contraband contrary to intelligence. They simply killed innocent Iraqis driving in cars. When Massey mentioned his "benefits," he referred among other things to the social security system of the military. The public is used to thinking about the country's top corporations offering benefits and pensions to retain loyal employees. Employees who stay long enough earn retirement pensions separate from the government's social security program. The same is true in the military. A fiscally conservative anti-tax organization has explained the military pension system very well. First is pensions before 1986: "All servicemen who joined the armed forces before August 1, 1986, are entitled to a pension replacing 50 percent of basic pay after twenty years, the minimum term of service required to qualify for military retirement. True, this basic pay does not include cash and in-kind allowances. But it is liberally calculated: on the basis of the final month of pay for servicemen who joined the military before September 8, 1980, and of the highest three years of pay (the "HI-3" method) for those who joined later. If servicemen postpone retirement, their pensions increase by 2.5 percent of pay per year, until, after thirty years in the military, a maximum replacement rate of 75 percent is reached. Each year, pensions receive a COLA equal to 100 percent of the CPI. [Consumer Price Index, a reference to measuring inflation--ed.] "So generous are these terms that two out of three officers and nine out of ten enlisted men who stay on for at least twenty years retire before completing twenty-five years. The average retirement age for officers is now 45. For enlisted men, it is 41. The result is that the typical member of the armed forces retiring this year will spend many more years collecting benefits (36 for a man and 41 for a woman) than earning them (21 years)."(2) The author of this quote is the "Concord Coalition" founded by the late Senator Paul Tsongas and ex-Senator Warren Rudman. A current co-chair is former Senator Bob Kerrey. The Concord Coalition became involved in the issue to protect a shavings in military pension benefits that was effective after 1986. Military pensioners form the backbone of many organizations that may seem to be simply patriotic and militarist. Currently, the American Legion is attacking the government for not allowing pensioners to receive both disability pay and a military pension.(3) Although not all veterans are reactionary, on average they are more reactionary than the rest of the Amerikan public. In a poll done during a high point in the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, 49% of voters supported Kerry for president with 41% for Bush. The same poll for veterans showed 54% support for Bush against Kerry; even though Kerry is a veteran and Bush & Cheney managed to avoid service. They especially supported the "war on terror" as their reason for supporting Bush. (4) While the public as a whole had just concluded by a margin of 50% to 46% that the war in Iraq was a mistake, the veterans by a margin of 51% to 46% did not think so.(4) It's even surprising that it is that close among veterans. The veteran portion of society is very significant in the united $tates. "An estimated 26.4 million people, or better than one in seven voting-age Americans, have served in the U.S. military, according to 2000 Census figures."(5) Despite this fact, it is important not to water down our opposition to militarism in public just because we may offend one in seven people who are veterans. The vast majority of veterans did not serve 20 years to gain a pension. Nonetheless, those that do make the 20 year mark are an important organizational elite. Because the military pension administration is separate from the disability administration or general social security administration and has a better benefit, military pensioners have a special interest. The same is true of pensioners everywhere in the world, a rock hard interest group. The difference with military pensioners is that they form an interest group that would like to enhance the importance and prestige of the military. If they had had only a disability pension, they would fight along with disabled people to protect and improve their benefits. Since the pension is specific to the military, 1) during service there is a military incentive to "look the other way" in cases like Massey's. 2) After service, military pensioners have an incentive to boost the importance of the usefulness of the military to keep the reasons for pension benefits fresh in the public's mind. While in the service, it not just the fringe benefits that create a certain atmosphere of "loyalty no matter what." The average Vietnam War general received a half star promotion because of the war.(6) The Marines ran Sgt. Massey out of service with an "honorable discharge" for verbally disagreeing with war crimes in Iraq. Every recruit has to ponder the effect of losing income or benefits for disagreeing with war crimes. Meanwhile, there is no pension reward for stopping war crimes or speaking against them. Many social-democratic minded people believe that they should "support our troops" by appeasing them on all benefits questions. This creates a dynamic where better benefits attract more recruits and they become more pillars of society with a special interest in promoting the military as if it were unblemished no matter what. Under the joint dictatorship of the proletariat of the oppressed nations, everyone has protection in case of disability and retirement. There is no need to create special interest groups with specific political agendas backing war or the prestige of war.
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