Several hunting seasons begin in Octoberby Melanie Lekocevic / October 3, 2022Related Posts
Saluting veterans who served ‘in the name of our freedom’
By Melanie Lekocevic
Capital Region Independent Media
RAVENA — Veterans put everything on the line in service to their nation, and on Friday the local community saluted them for it.
The annual Veterans Day ceremony was held at Veterans Memorial Park on Main Street in the village. After VFW Post 9594 Commander Mike Kindlon opened the ceremony, Chaplain Dan LaMora recited a prayer and Vietnam veteran Jack Covey performed patriotic songs on the guitar and read a poem he wrote in honor of his fellow veterans.
Covey served in combat in Vietnam, his son has been a Marine for 11 years and his youngest son just left the Air Force after serving for seven years.
“We are steeped in military pride,” Covey said.
In his poem, Covey spoke of meeting “The Veteran Next Door,” who did three tours of duty in Afghanistan. Their shared military experiences formed a deep bond between the two men, Covey said.
“We recognize each other with a knowing nod — we are a family forged in fire and given the strength by God,” Covey read from his poem. “We come in all sizes — some manned ships, some manned tanks, and some served in the infantry ranks. And some came home from the war and received no thanks. But we are connected as a band of brothers, we comfort and care for each other, so today, on this 11th day, on the 11th hour, I pledge with all my power to thank all my brother vets, the ones that made it home and the ones that haven’t yet.”
Kindlon spoke of the importance of what was left behind when heading off to battle — family, friends and community — that help sustain troops through the difficult days ahead.
“On the worst days of combat, through the losses and the pain, I took pause and thought, can I make it just one more day?” Kindlon said. “The unique thing about that is that what gets you through that next day is wanting to come home to your family, your friends and your community. That’s what drives your fire because that’s what you’ve left behind.”
Capt. Robin Riordan, an Auxiliary member who retired from the U.S. Army Reserves after serving for 25 years, explained the importance and history of Veterans Day.
“Each Nov. 11, we gather to recognize the bravest of our citizens, the many people who have served in the military in the name of our freedom. There are approximately 19 million veterans living today, according to U.S. Census Bureau data,” Riordan said.
Veterans Day was originally called Armistice Day and was formed in the days following World War I.
“Veterans Day can trace its origins back to Nov. 11, 1918, the one-year anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I,” Riordan said. “President Woodrow Wilson declared that day Armistice Day. In 1926, Congress passed a resolution to make it an annual occurrence. Veterans Day is an important day for every American and is intended to honor and appreciate all servicemen who served in the United States. Veterans Day honors all past military members who served our country regardless of the war or conflict, or if they lived or died.”
Korean War veteran Eugene Datri said the ceremony in honor of Veterans Day was a fitting tribute to those who served.
“I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of serving our country,” Datri said after the ceremony’s conclusion. “It’s one of the best things I have ever done, and I didn’t realize it at the time.”
Datri was seated next to his lifelong friend and fellow Korean War veteran, Mike Albano. Datri served in the Army, and Albano served in the Navy.
The two men were friends in the village in their pre-war days, and as one was getting off a military ship in Pusan (now known as Busan) in Korea, the other was getting on. They spotted each other among the other 5,000 U.S. military troops at the port. Seeing a friendly face from home was priceless, they said.
“He was getting on the ship and I was getting off the ship,” Albano said. “The only person I ever saw from here way over in Korea,” Albano said.
The two remain friends more than 70 years later.
“We grew up together and we are still friends. We still call each other on the telephone,” Albano said.
The daughter of a local veteran who served in World War I — the first, not the second, World War — was also on hand to honor those who served. Susan Meyers said her father, Gerald Schermerhorn, was 62 when she was born and had served in World War I.
“He didn’t talk about it much,” Meyers said, adding that she still has the service medal that was awarded to her father a hundred years ago.
Meyers’ family has a long tradition of military service — her father served in World War I, her stepfather served in World War II, and her uncle, nephew and two best friends all served in the Vietnam War.
Social Security Matters: How is my Social Security benefit calculated?
By Russell Gloor
For Capital Region Independent Media
Dear Rusty:
I appreciate your recent article dispelling the myth that politicians have stolen Social Security money. As a CPA, I dispel this myth repeatedly to clients who falsely claim SS funds have been raided.
But another thing I deal with often is how SS benefits are calculated. I know the formula for determining each person’s benefit amount is complex, but I have had to explain numerous times that those who put the most into Social Security get the lowest rate of return and those who put the least in get the highest return based on the way the benefit formula is structured.
I get tired of people complaining that monthly Social Security payments are higher for retired doctors and other highly paid individuals. Can you please explain how Social Security is weighted in favor of lower income workers?
Signed: Tired of the Misunderstandings
Dear Tired:
Please don’t be frustrated. Because of the program’s complexity, Social Security is prone to misunderstanding, and educating the misinformed is an important professional duty we share. Here’s how each person’s SS benefit is determined:
The first thing to know is that each person’s SS retirement benefit is not based on their financial contributions to the program. Social Security’s purpose is to provide a benefit that replaces a portion of the person’s pre-retirement income, so the SS benefit is based on actual lifetime earnings, not on the payroll taxes withheld from those earnings.
Social Security has your lifetime earnings record (obtained annually from the IRS) and that record determines your “primary insurance amount” or “PIA.” Your “PIA” is initially determined in your eligibility year (usually age 62) and is the amount you will get if you claim for benefits to start exactly at your full retirement age (FRA).
To develop your PIA, Social Security first adjusts (indexes) each year of your lifetime earnings (up to the annual payroll tax cap) to account for inflation. They then select the 35 inflation-adjusted years in which you earned the most, from which they compute your average monthly earnings over your lifetime (this is called your Average Indexed Monthly Earnings, or “AIME”). They then break your AIME into three segments, the first of which includes a majority of — and possibly all of — your AIME. They then take a percentage of each segment and total those three amounts to determine your PIA.
The first segment is the largest and 90% of that first segment contributes most of your PIA. Smaller percentages of the other two segments (32% and 15% respectively if your AIME is higher), are then added to the first computation to arrive at your full PIA — the amount you get if you start benefits in the month you reach your FRA.
Note that since most of the PIA comes from the first large segment of each person’s AIME, lower income workers get a higher percentage of their lifetime average monthly amount.
Since benefits are based on earnings, those with lower lifetime earnings do, indeed, get a smaller benefit than those with higher average lifetime earnings, but the percentage of pre-retirement replacement income that lower income workers receive is higher than for those with higher monthly average lifetime earnings.
The Social Security benefit for lower income workers is typically about 40% of their pre-retirement average monthly income, while those with higher lifetime average earnings may get a benefit as little as 20% of their average monthly pre-retirement earnings.
In that sense, the Social Security benefit formula is progressive and weighted in favor of lower income workers. Nevertheless, albeit a smaller replacement percentage, higher income workers receive a higher monthly SS benefit because of their higher lifetime earnings. Even so, those higher earners did, indeed, contribute more payroll taxes from their higher earnings.
So, each person’s SS retirement benefit amount is a percentage of their pre-retirement income. Coincidently, those with higher pre-retirement income also contributed more to the Social Security program than did those with lower earnings. But their higher SS benefit amount is based on their higher pre-retirement earnings, not on payroll taxes paid from those higher earnings.
This article is intended for information purposes only and does not represent legal or financial guidance. It presents the opinions and interpretations of the AMAC Foundation’s staff, trained and accredited by the National Social Security Association (NSSA). NSSA and the AMAC Foundation and its staff are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other governmental entity. To submit a question, visit our website (amacfoundation.org/programs/social-security-advisory) or email us at ssadvisor@amacfoundation.org.
