May I ask what you gentlemen and ladies would do to increase retention? Would 120k help retention?
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Bonuses are like tips, they're temporary and unreliable. If you want to show a position some respect, then increase the BASE PAY (e.g., establish a separate nuke pay structure). Doing something that you wouldn't otherwise do for the promise of a bonus always smells a little like prostitution.
For me, it was never about the money or even the sacrifice of going to sea. Going to sea to keep your country safe is an honor that I enjoyed. Duty days in port when there was no work that needed to be done was BS. The bad management sucked. That was it, having your time wasted at the whim of anyone who happened to wear a higher rank than you. That's the crux of the quality of life issue.
If you want to fix that problem, then you start paying sailors an hourly rate. Not for the good of the sailors, but for development of the managers. If you want to teach managers to manage, then make them pay for people's time. That would be a start.
But the number one deal breaker is clearly having to deal with the fact that you can't get to or leave your job without the potential of being harassed by any individual of any higher rank anywhere on the ship (e.g., airdale khaks) just because they don't like the way you look. It's the fact that a CWO4 CAN NOT be wrong or even suggested to tone it down when he's screaming the foulest of obscenities at an E-4 [who dared to wear a tank top off the ship] right in front (i.e., < 10') of a crowd of shocked and cringing women and children who came to greet their loved ones off the ship after 120 days at sea [that one cost me two days of liberty in Rio De Janeiro - not the dude in the tank top, but the dude who suggested that the CWO4 might tone it down]. I digress.
No SRBs will fix any of these problems. Golden handcuff programs (e.g., if you stay for a certain duration we'll give you this amount of cash after the fact) are incentives. SRBs are indentured servitude, and except for the promise of freedom at some point, they're selling yourself into slavery. How much money would you sell yourself for? It's a "yes" or "no" question. The size of the SRB is just quibbling over price.
mgm