Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 7-1-2013
Abstract
This Article explores the potential immediate and secondary effects of retirement reform on military discipline. Part I of this Article presents the most recent proposal, articulated in 2011 by the Defense Business Board ("DBB"), and analyzes its inherent shortcomings. Part II provides an interlocking broad view analysis as to why the conversion of retirements in a 401(k) model could prove disastrous to discipline. This interlocking analysis addresses: (1) the potential for erosion of the civil-military relationship, (2) the relationship between the Takings Clause12 of the Fifth Amendment and military retirements, (3) the principle of detrimental reliance, and (4) the inapplicability of case law to support the radical alteration scheme for military retirements posed by the DBB. The analysis also addresses the legal impediment of unlawful orders to the proposed scheme. Part III of this Article analyzes two potential direct impacts that would likely undermine discipline through weakening the Uniform Code of Military Justice ("UCMJ"). It must be remembered that military retirements are not true retirements. The receipt of military retirements is the instrument in which the government may recall its veterans to active service in time of national emergency, or for the individualized purpose of bringing a criminal to justice.
Publication Title
Creighton Law Review
Volume
46
First Page
369
Recommended Citation
Joshua E. Kastenberg,
Recent Proposals to Change the Traditional Military Retirement System to Mirror the Federal Service Retirement: Eroding Discipline and Civil-Military Relations Through Potentially Unlawful and Certainly Questionable Acts,
46
Creighton Law Review
369
(2013).
Available at:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facultyscholarship/439
