Roughead to the Food Trough

It is time to revisit the Salamander Rule (Rev. 2).

Congress should enact in to law that retired General & Flag Officers are not allowed to serve in a paid or unpaid position in any publicly or privately held company incorporated in the United States of America that have pending materiel or consulting contracts with the Department of Defense for 5-years from their retirement date. The time period will be 10 years for foreign held companies.

Penalty for violating this restriction will be full and permanent forfeiture of all pay and allowances.

Why? Well - we all know that companies are looking for one thing when they hire a 4-star; they are buying influence and a network of contacts. In this specific case, if you look at the rolling train wreck that is the Navy shipbuilding and maintenance record while he was CNO - it sure isn't anything related to performance.

Behold all that is unclean.

Former U.S. Navy Chief of Naval Operations Gary Roughead Joins Northrop Grumman Board of Directors.

Man has to earn a living ... right?

Have you seen how much we pay GOFO in retirement? They get a lot for a reason; so that they won't sell themselves to the highest bidder and add to an appearance of corruption and influence peddling; even if, as in this case, there is no reason to suspect anything untoward is going on.

If you want GOFO to have respect - they have to earn it. Standing on a street corner in Alexandria flashing your DD214 to passing cars won't do it.

Let's see. Gary is a retired O-10. He graduated from Annapolis in 1973 and retired in SEP 2011; 6-months ago. That puts him at 38 years of service.

Go to your retirement pay calculator. He is under the Boomer final pay retirement system, unlike you Gen-X, Gen-Y, and Millennial Serfs so ... wait for it ... that comes to ...

Gross Retirement pay:
$14,536.38 a month.
$174,436.56 a year.

That does not include whatever disability pay he is getting extra from the VA. Yes, he is getting pocket change from the VA on top of all that too.

How much is he being paid by NG? Doesn't really matter - does it? $0 or $100,000 - it smells the same.

Hat tip, beltway bandit.