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Guess it all depends where one is stationed.

Chicken breast, definitely. $1.90-ish a lb vs. $3.90 ish/lb. Probably why they usually run out by Thursday-Friday. Steak is like 75% the price. I can find angus ribeye here for $10-12/lb in regular super markets and remember acquiring it for like $7-8/lb in commisaries. Interestingly and...

You have to ask for it. Google "bupers online" and login, from there you can access your service record and order a CD (CAC required).

Eh, a little asterisk to that. Your official service record is electronic. So you only need to keep copies until you get an updated CD from bupers that you can download into your computer. If the file doesn't exist in the bupers website, then it's not in your service record (which might be...

You guys keep talking about lower retention numbers like that's a problem in an Army that is 'right sizing.'

I think you are over-estimating the impact someone can have with individual donations. My district's representative (who voted yea for the bill along with most other Representatives), has raised over $1.5 million for next year's election. You think he would miss $500, or even $2000 from me...

Eh, I didn't word it the best. That's what PR guys are for. Point is, the military (similar to police, firemen, etc) will tell you at the the bright bold age of about 45 years old "you can't work here anymore. You're too old for this shit." And then you have to hope that your service experience...

Best advice I ever got from my class LT at OCS: "Never make a promise you can't keep."

That's why PR needs to make them understand that military members get an early pension because they are told "thanks for your service, now go do something completely different" after 20-30 years no matter what (except for flag officers and generals). The people who have 401ks and whatnot can...

Do taxes count? Because that adds up to tens of thousands of dollars. But my district is a democrat stronghold and the Senaters are practically elected by NYC. Flushing a $400 donation down the toilet would be more effective than giving it to Republican. Also, Paul Ryan (R) wrote the bill. So...

I was playing devil's advocate. But to be more direct, I believe that... -That AD servicemembers earn every bit of their pay and compensation. -John Q. Public really doesn't have any idea what most of the military does, how many hours the guys work, the optempo servicemembers have been 'asked'...

I'm not the one you need to be scared of. You need to be scared of the 95%+ of US population who has never served a day in the military and has no concept of what people in the military actually do. They will have no idea why we even collect a paycheck let alone get a compensation package that...

I don't follow the leap from cutting CPI increases by 1% to disbanding the military. As for the past 10 years, let's not forget that military personnel compensation has doubled during that period, with an average 3.5%/year increase in AD compensation. Retiree spending is 1/5 of the personnel...

How do you know that they haven't? Do you tell your subordinates every time a superior disagrees with a policy or direction you want to take? I think we're privy to like 0.01% of conversations that happen between closed doors, and there are dozens if not hundreds of documented examples in the...

I have heard a few very senior officers recognize this very problem and assure that they are working it. The thing is, you can't just undo a contract by saying "thanks, but we'll be taking our billions of sunk cost back now" or "yea, we signed this contract that awards your staff 6-figure...

ADM Greenert was appointed VCNO in 32 YCS, ADM Ferguson in 33 YCS, ADM Walsh in 30. YCS, so 31 YCS doesn't seem out of the realm of 'normal' for the past 3 VCNOs, and I don't feel like looking back further than that.

First time I've seen someone refer to a list of cars that cost over $30k each as possible candidates for beaters.

It's important to read the fine print when quoting cases because the headlines frequently miss the underlying legal issues. Yes, the case arose out of [probably ridiculous] racial concerns, but the ruling was ultimately based on whether or not the Chicago FD written test was a valid exam...

Your post reminded me how 'behind the times' many dealerships are. I did a similar technique with regard to contacting via email. It's just faster that way and easier to communicate with weird work hours. But almost every response was a standard copy/paste followed by 'come in for a test drive.'...

I remember hearing recently that they wanted to add sexual orientation to federal EOP laws. If that passes (or has already passed), it's coming soon to the DoD. I think we're talking semantics. When faced with the choice between staying on the highway to corporate exec or taking the risk of...

Because senior leadership -- political, civilian, and military -- constantly make diversity a big deal.

It's not limited to the Navy. Go into any medium to large company and you will see 3-4 plaques with pictures of executives and full-page expositions telling you how important diversity is to their companies. Your angst is not with the DoD; it's with the equal opportunity laws that mandate such...

Strongly disagree. There are still people in this day and age who won't hire blacks because once upon a time they hired a black person who fit the stereotype and was nearly imposisble to fire. They can get away with this if their company is relatively small and you live in an area that has...

Probably because, militarily speaking, the heavy hitters are China and the U.S. So China pissing all over Korea, Japan, the Phillipines, etc. just puts the U.S. in a pickle, and China is probably correct in assessing that the U.S. is too economically tied to it to do anything substantial about...

That movie was the first I saw of Chris Tucker and it took me several minutes to determine whether he was a he or a she. I think once he got with the flight attendant I settled on he, but still wasn't quite sure.

Under worst-case budget analysis (sequestriation continues and no budget gets approved or the budget is in-line with sequestriation numbers), the Navy will only be able to procure one ship by 2050. Under best case, Congress gives DoD the budget they want and there's no problem at all to get...

You're missing the point. BAS, were it not deducted from all servicemembers' paycheck, is to cover the cost of food for the individual servicemember (and to be specific, it's supposed to cover the cost of food incurred by eating at government mess facilities). The cost of food can be fairly...

I think it's worth noting that the only thing a BAS increase would accomplish in a vacuum is raising the cost of eating at the base galley or onboard the ship for many, if not most, enlisted servicemembers. That will have the opposite morale effect of throwing them a bone for closing the...

To answer your question, I don't want to see servicemembers' benefits cut, but I can see where things just don't make sense. Paying someone full medical benefits because your organization has its own team of doctors and because the job requires people to put their physical well being makes...

Page 15 doesn't explain anything. It's making a statement with no supporting evidence, just like every other store in existance claims you save money by shopping there. To the commissary's credit, customers probably actually save money by shopping there. But where are they getting $2.8 billion...

We'll have to agree to disagree here. It's clear to me that this is funky math in a pitch to keep the commissary around. Also, you didn't answer my question: What is this $2 ROI even based on? The report doesn't say, but you're willing to quote it as fact. I've got some stuff in my garage to...

ROI is calculated from gross investment, not net profit/loss. You have to add in the operating costs that the commissary makes back as well -- another 6 billion IIRC. So the total minimum cost to keep the commissaries open in 2012 was $7.5 billion, $6 billion of which were recouperated in sales...

If you were both AD: -Married, no kids, each get single BAH rate (subject to situations where one or the other would lose BAH, such as if two enlisted servicemmebers were married w/o children and one got sent to OCS, the member in OCS does not collect BAH. I don't know if base housing takes both...

I think a non-servicemember would ask why military gets to have their food subsidized by federal tax dollars via BAS, then gets to shop at a grocery store subsidized further by tax dollars, but John Q. Public has to buy food with his taxable income at a completely for-profit grocery store? When...

It is being addressed. The DoD's leading medical cost for ADSMs are rehab and pain killers for patients wounded or injured in battle. It makes sense -- what else is going to be the leading healthcare cost of a population of that mostly consists of 18-30 year old men who were physically screened...

I wasn't talking specialists really... no specialist at the MTF then you get sent out to town. It probably doesn't happen often enough to warrant hiring specialists except in the largest bases like Norfolk, San Diego, Pearl, etc. My point was that it's cheaper to hire a bunch of general...

If we're talking bottom-line money for the DoD... Involuntary geobachelors cost the DoD more money. They get paid BAH for their last duty station or their current one, whichever is higher, AND per diem for the BEQ/BOQ while forward deployed. It is cheaper to move them over-seas, and that's not...

Closing the commissary isn't 'goring the ox.' It's taking away his food that costs less than 1% of your budget. I don't get why whenever cuts come up, the first thing to be considered are high QOL impact but low cost services. Probably because they're the easiest to adjust thanks to a slew of...

Eh, YMMV. If OTCN is blocking these sites, it's because they don't think students ought to have access to them. But it'll mostly depend on his class team whether or not they choose to enforce the "only use computers for business" rules. Either way, there's no reason to announce on AW.com that...

Jeez, it was a tongue in cheek comment. And it was more directed at the fact that "African American" is PC codeword for "black," despite the fact that white people (and Arabs who are technically white but don't identify as such) live in Africa, too.

Because a lot of the enlisted base pay scale is designed around benefits that aren't seen directly in a paycheck. If I were an E-5 or E-6 with two kids, you bet I'd be shopping exclusivey at the commissary on that budget. You get rid of all the subsidized services and eventually you will see...

How can you be 'African American' if you didn't emigrate from a country in Africa???

Why does it have to be either-or there? Why can't we take a hard look at the way we procure supplies and allocate budget to ships so you don't waste hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit on an end of fiscal year spendex buying over-priced consumables that you don't need? With the money you...

We (they?) know how to use MS Windows to multi-task. You've only been able to do that on PCs for 20 or so years now, so I wouldn't expect slow old people to catch on yet. :p

The civilian equivalent to khakis is business casual. The civilian equivalent to SDBs or summer whites is business suit attire. Having said that, I think this is being nuked to hell. It's your enlistment contract that you will only fulfill if you wash out of OCS AND were getting paid prior to...

I didn't say every company had that culture, just that many do and the trend is moving away from playing dress up to go to the office, particularly in silicon valley. If you're looking for a career in corporate finance on wall street, though, it's still suit and tie everyday.

We also live in a society that is continually moving more toward casual in the workplace. There are a lot of companies where if you show up in slacks, you're over-dressed and over-compensating... something the CO who is 20 years older might not realize. Personally, my enlistment swearing in...

I think you underestimate how many people don't know the difference between Officer and enlisted and the difference between service branches. On top of that, they suspect everything military recruiters say is a lie and that their kid is no longer a credible source because he/she now believes...

The federal government looks at money the way shopaholics do... "Honey, I saved $40 on this dress!" "How much was it?" "$200" "So you spent $200" "No, I saved $40!" Even better when they spin it that tax and program cuts 'cost the taxpayers.'