When you decided to make a career out of the military (or join your spouse in doing so) it was with a certain understanding about your retirement benefits.
And then Congress laughed in your face, knocked down the yearly retiree cost of living adjustment (COLA) and ripped you off somewhere around $124,000 if you are an average retiring officer and $83,000 if you are an average retiring enlisted member.
We know you're mad about this. Instead of doing what they said they would do -- only change retirement for new servicemembers -- they broke a pledge to those of us who are already in or who are under 62 and already retired.
Months of idle threats and scare tactics over pay and benefits turned into action. They really did screw career servicemembers over.
But there are several members of Congress who are offering bills to undo this nasty piece of work and keep the promise the nation made to you when you joined.
Do you want to get their attention? Do you want your full retirement back?
A partnership of organizations and groups, including SpouseBuzz, is working to get and KEEP the attention of lawmakers, Defense Department leaders and industry insiders through social media. And you can join us in making an ACTUAL impact.
Join us Jan. 7 at 9 p.m. for a social media Town Hall event --a moderated discussion on Facebook with knowledgeable panelists (including representatives from the Military Officer's Association and our friend Rebekah Sanderlin) will be paired with a Twitter town hall under #KeepYourPromise.
We know lawmakers are watching. A similar twitter-only #KeepYourPromise town hall before the holidays had 16,000 tweets in one hour. The KeepYourPromise Facebook page reached 10,000 likes in two days. Sixty-three million -- 63 MILLION! -- Facebook timelines saw traffic from #KeepYourPromise.
This kind of impact cannot be made without your participation, and yes I do mean YOU. Here's how:
1. Join us on Facebook for the panelist side of the town hall meeting at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday, Jan. 7. Click here to get to the Facebook town hall meeting.
2. Follow SpouseBuzz on Twitter and watch for the #KeepYourPromise tag. Click here to follow SpouseBuzz on Twitter.
