I think those pilots you're referring to? They've probably had close to a billion dollars invested in them, each. Pilot training is probably among the highest cost in modern military training, especially when it comes to these new super specialized jets. It takes 400+ hours of simulation time for a talented pilot to be able to competently fly some of these vessels. They're not paid by the hour, but the people conducting the training might be. The civilians who work on the base are probably paid hourly. This is all peanuts in the grand scheme, but you get what I'm saying. You mentioned another interesting point to this- it's not like it's just 300,000 Marines, *all in the same unit and carrying out similar duties,* are being discharged- we're talking like 100 guys from this unit, 12 guys from that unit, all of the cooks for 2nd Battalion, 2 Corpsmen from a currently deployed squad, 7 ground control crewmen from here, 25 drivers/heavy equipment operators from there..... **this would lead to one of the greatest clusterfucks ever witnessed in military history.** Our officers, specifically the top brass, aren't competent/are corrrupt, we know this- so we know that they would fail to train men ahead of time to replace the people they're likely going to discharge. Dozen of units would become *crippled for possibly MONTHS.* Just losing one good man can really change a base or an operation. And this would have a terrible effect on the remaining members' morale. Suddenly, the Storekeep Bosun Mate that could always somehow track down exactly what you needed while on a ship in the middle of the fucking ocean- he's gone, discharged. And the guy who is now in his position has no fucking clue what he's doing and you can't depend on him. There would be **thousands** of issues like this that popped up all over the world with our troops.