Captain America Fan Crunches Numbers, Says Army Owes Hero $3M
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CLEBURNE (CBSDFW.COM) - Cleburne resident David William Allison, 31, calculated that the United States Military owes Marvel character Captain America $3 million; then shared his theory on Reddit.
"I just sat back in my kitchen table with a pencil and paper and a calculator and figured it out," said Allison, whose fascination with Captain America started at 9-years-old.
Allison broke down fictional events from the Marvel Universe and matched them with tangible compensation in today's world. Keep in mind Capt. Steve Rogers (aka Captain America) was frozen in time between 1945 and 2011 (start of "The Avengers"), meaning the government owes him back pay for 66 years since technically, he wasn't relieved of duty.
Here's Allison's Reddit breakdown:
The O-3 pay grade in 1945 for someone with two years or less experience was $313.50 a quarter. If you had specialized training such as parachuting and Special Operations (which he does) you received an extra $100 per quarter. Plus a quarterly living allowance without a dependent of $82.50. That comes out to $496 a quarter.
That's $1,984 per year for his first three years. So that's $5,952 right there, considering that he was commissioned the same year that he exited basic.
Also, there is an biannual increase of pay for service with a pay cap at 22 years with no increase of specialized pay or living allowance. Now provided that they kept him at the 1945 pay scale, for the 22 years after that, he would have received a total of $81,684 plus the previous $5,952 giving him a grand total of $87,636.
Now, provided that they kept the pay scale constant for the 66 years after, and they thawed him out in 2011 and immediately returned him to active duty with current Commission (which they did), adjusted for inflation, the government owes him the back pay amount of $3,154,619.52.
The post garnered enough buzz to catch the attention of the Army, which issued a response. Allison was shocked, and of course updated his Reddit post appropriately:
EDIT: Holy crap! Who knew the Army would actually respond to this?!
EDIT 2: Oh my gosh I'm going to be on CBS 11 in DFW at 6 pm
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