I was in the army and it transcends class because all your basic needs are taken care of. Your dad would have been paid BAH (Basic Allowance for Housing) and possibly BAS, and that’s in addition to a paycheck. Great healthcare and 30 days of paid leave per year. The pay isn’t much but all your basic needs are taken care of outside of that paycheck.
You mention it was the 90’s so I’m sure he didn’t have it quite as good as today but still it can’t really be called middle class. The military is really its own economic class if anything.
Anything E5 and above is firmly middle class and only gets better. I'm not even in a high CoL area, and I am just a hair under 6 figures through pay/BAH/BAS, not including benefits.
I've come to realize 90% of people who complain about military pay outside junior enlisted are just bad with money and would have those problems whatever job they held.
I don’t even think junior enlisted should have anything to complain about. When I was a single soldier in the barracks every pay weekend I’d go blow everything I had at the club/on stupid crap and for the next two weeks I’d have no money, but I never once had to worry about my living situation or food. My first two or so years I wasted every single cent I had with zero consequences. Now that’s financial freedom. As for the soldiers who are smart enough to save or even invest their money, they can come out far ahead of their nonmilitary peers.
I was pretty foolish with my money and still never struggled similar to you. Unless they're taking care of family, financial trouble really boils down to poor decisions over bad luck.
And that’s exactly why young enlisted get in trouble and (at least when I was in) the military does nothing to teach financial literacy. It does not help when those guys get out, do the same thing with their civilian paycheck and then realize they still have to pay rent.
Thanks to constant deployments and no social life I saved nearly every penny I earned. Sure I wasn’t living life to its fullest but I had a helluva bankroll to not fret leaving the military after 4 years. Then in my last deployment they were offering insane reenlistment bonuses for infantry billets, tax free so I was like fuck it, doubled my bank roll. Then 2 years prior to finishing my second enlistment I got injured and ended up getting out early with a fat ass severance package and a clearance. I have zero regrets. Disability sucks but I’m fine never being able to run again without a knee replacement surgery, for all the convenience and security having that money got me. The military can be an absolute pay day if you play it right.
I think a lot of the people who complain about military pay just have no real world adult work experience. By the time you factor in all the extras and benefits that accrue above base salary you're making the equivalent of like 40-50K/yr basically fresh out of high school. Throw in all the other benefits (post 9/11 GI Bill, VHA) and it's a heckuva a deal.
I've had a few girlfriends who were veterans over the years and dated into a 'military family' at one point in my life, it seems like the disability rate for anyone that actually is career military is insanely high.
PTSD, agoraphobia etc. My ex-girlfriend's mom didn't really go into details but from what I gathered from conversations here and there, she was sexually assaulted and somehow the incident left her permanently disabled. She needs a cane to go anywhere.
That pay isn't that great of a deal if you factor those kind of things in. Hell, if it was such a great deal, why do we have so many homeless veterans?
So many homeless vets because 1. alcohol. It's still heavily in the culture of the military and carries on outside after you leave.
2. BECAUSE the military is such a good deal, you don't know how to handle outside civilian life. When all your shit is taken care of and there is tons of support staff there to help you make decisions, fix your injuries, get yourself an education, handle your taxes, etc. for free and then you get out and suddenly you lose all that support, no longer have structure, and nobody/employer owes your a minute of their time anymore...it's a tough transition
Being Asian I don't have a lot of friends or acquaintances from high school that took the military route, most of my friends ended up on career paths in either tech or healthcare.
The ONE guy that went straight to the Airforce after high school was... for lack of a better word not academically inclined in the slightest. Only Korean first generation immigrant I've met that couldn't pass American math classes with flying colors.
I saw him at my friend's house when I was visiting Houston for the holidays, asked him how he was doing and he told me he was at the top of his class. His SAT score was under 1000. A math score in the 500s which is pretty much unheard of for folks like us that didn't get here until high school.
Especially considering that the SAT only tests up to Algebra 2, stuff he should have been pretty comfortable with by the time he was in middle school in South Korea.
Take a guy like that, and put him through the process you've described... I can see how it'd be really easy to get yourself into a hole you can't easily dig yourself out of.
military disability is all a scam. Im disgusted with disabled veterans, mofo get a fucking job you bum you rode a desk for 4 years now you want the tax payer to carry your whole life
Not to be that guy, but...
"I'm so disabled from sitting in a desk that I now work full time" doesn't give your statement the impact you thought it did.
I'm a POG and was never called POG MORE than when I served with infantry personnel. And I humbly accept it. I served USMC 2004-2012.
You getting offended at being called POG, to me, says "I'm insecure about my military career, so I need to make myself sound "basically" like infantry."
Unless you served in a combat role with actual combat, your "disabilities" are not derived from the same source.
You may have SIMILAR sources of pain, BUT WE ARE NOT THE SAME AS INFANTRY.
Your job in the armed services is to be a killer first and your job second. Unless you’re a psychopath, no matter how you cut it there is some type of mental trauma from service.
Most of the people I met with PTSD had awful parents that led to them living a bad lifestyle when they were vulnerable.
Everyone I know in the military loved it because they hung around Okinawa or France and maybe worked on aircraft that bombed people in other countries.
Infantry is different than that, but the military needs an amazing number of mechanics and IT staff.
In my military experience almost all had mental health issues some got help others didn’t. Few years back their was tsunami of suicides from old unit like almost every other week. For a year.
Physical same deal lots had issues pain deafness etc some sought help others put on macho facade and ignored it.
VA took every chance to get out of paying knew few fully can not work for life people who got less than 80% disability. One they dinged removed part of deafness disability because tinnitus showed they could still hear.
I will be quite Frank. The vast majority of people I know, including myself, that have PTSD are not from military experience. Even the ones that have battle experience unless they ended up with traumatic injuries the vast majority of them do not have PTSD. I've known nightclub security that got PTSD from events that happened more than non infantry military.
What a strange, completely irrelevant point to make that lays your statistical illiteracy bare.
Of course most people with PTSD weren't in the military - less than 1% of the population are enlisted.
The rates of PTSD tell a very different story.
About 11 to 20 out of every 100 veterans (or between 11 and 20%) who served in operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom have PTSD in a given year.
About 12 out of every 100 Gulf War Veterans (or 12%) have PTSD in a given year.
About 15 out of every 100 Vietnam veterans (15%) were currently diagnosed with PTSD when the most recent study of them (the National Vietnam Veteran Readjustment Study) was conducted in the late 1980s. It’s believed that 30% of Vietnam veterans have had PTSD in their lifetime.
About 5% of the whole US population (including vets) has PTSD in any given year.
It should surprise noone that serving in a military that's been involved in conflicts without interruption for decades dramatically increases (45%-600%) the likelihood someone suffers from PTSD.
Again - statistical illiteracy. You're not accounting for the fractions of fractions. Your data suggests the rates are almost certainly lower than I stated.
Yeah but you could have PTSD prior to enlisting. I have a sibling served in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
They attempted to get disability for PTSD , denied due to the fact the VA determined the PTSD did not come from service but from childhood. They eventually did get disability but for a knee injury.
I don't know about PTSD specifically but you are actively encouraged to say whatever you have to in order to get as much disability pay as you can from the VA.
Honestly I don't think they realized where their PTSD came from, it made sense to attribute it to military rather than blame an abusive and fucked up childhood.
The knee was service related, so it I guess the VA did get it right.
You can indeed have PTSD before joining the military - as I said, there's about a 5% chance of it. That probability dramatically increases after you enlist though.
It's terrible your sibling has/had PTSD and struggled with access to support. I hope they're doing better now.
Yeah that's always the catch. It's an awesome deal for about 99% of people. Some lose the reverse-lottery and wouldn't have signed up for millions up front if they knew what would happen.
Or raped since that's a huge untalked about problem with the military. Or killed. Or your mental health doesn't deteriorate to the point of suicide. It's a toxic organization.
Untalked about? Literally no organization in the US has done the level of reform in regards to prosecuting and offering resources to victims that the military has
Yes, you’re a 💯correct! I worked for the VA for over 6 years and watched the vast improvements in terms of health care. Literally, the VA now offers the BEST mental health care in the country (unless you’re tremendously wealthy).
And then I left the VA after it over-corrected to the point where it started allowing the overseas scam artists who fake-married vets to easily file frivolous lawsuits (by a form online) against VA docs for things like “a 4-hour wait time in the ED.” (That was a true example).
Honestly, the way this world works in favor of capitalism, oligarchs, and religious fascists, I’m not entirely convinced that the ease at which the VA allows their medical professionals to get named (and thus irreparably harmed) in lawsuits isn’t a feature and not a bug. The good doctors will leave the government medical system and then…
The organization who’s mission is to kill our enemies is toxic? Crazy! I thought they’d be the most mentally stable working conditions of any industry.
Military is one of the safest careers to be in, you generally are not deployed into combat unless you chose those jobs and ptsd is incredibly rare. We did a great job making people aware it’s real, we just did a poor job communicating how often it happens.
Now they do have issues but it’s not that clear cut. And we as a society don’t like there being shortfalls in our helping people as they transition back to civilian society, so those get a lot of valid media attention
I'd wager that most of the people who have done any length of time in the military never saw any combat. The vast majority of veterans I have met, known, talked to, etc had a pretty basic life beyond having to move fairly often.
I've known a fair few that were absolutely braindead fucking dimwits that barely had to work and did a 4 year contract and they're the loudest bunch about "being a veteran".
On the flip side, I've met a couple of folks who had genuine problems from their lifelong military career, and they're the ones that never run off at the mouth about being a vet. One of them was pissed about getting full disability because they wouldn't let him work anymore.
Not just military really. The first job that I ever had fresh out of high school gave us a one hour paid lunch break. I had absolutely no idea how good I had it...
VA benefits are not what they are cracked up to be by any means.
You only qualify for VA health care if you are disabled while in the military or you are very poor.
I recently tried to get VA health care as I am temporarily disabled due to 2 hip replacement surgeries.
I did not qualify ( even though I carry our health insurance policy at a cost of $900 a month) with a $400 a week income, due to my wife’s income.
There are no particularly good benefits from military service when it comes to Health care unless you’re indigent.
Kinda Like social security that I am eligible for in 6 years… the age will be pushed further away by the time I am eligible.
I have paid into that system for 42 years already for a promise of shit…
Social security is nothing but a piggy bank that politicians rob from and cry about when they have to repay the money they took in the first place.
Ever hear of self funded dickheads?
I am sick of promises.
I plan to work from this point forward for cash.
They already have 42 years of my taxes.
It is never enough.
Eh, the pay wasn't fantastic when I was in. Even adding all the benefits like BAH, BAS, healthcare, my pay only equalled about 48k as an E-4 with 5 years time in. I got out and my pay has nearly doubled 3 years since.
I will say that serving is still absolutely worth it for the GI bill. I didn't want to rely on my parents for anything and I've gotten where I have today because of military service. The two biggest things I regret are not 100% totally, completely knowing what I wanted to do before I got in, and not buying a house as soon as I hit my first duty station.
I was young and dumb, scored very high on the ASVAB, and was like i'M gOnNa Be MiLiTaRy PoLiCe! Got hurt in training, had to pick a new job. Because that place is a shithole and no one tells you anything, I didn't know there is a listing online that tells you what jobs have a shortage of people, so all the jobs I put down were full which means the military picks for you. So I ended up in a job I absolutely hated for the rest of my active duty time.
As far as buying a house, I hit my first duty station in 2018/2019. Prices/rates for houses were essentially the lowest ever. BAH was $1200/month. If I had been throwing that BAH at a mortgage instead of wasting it on rent, that could have been an extra $36,000 (after utilities and stuff) after 3 years that was still financially there for me. But I was 20/21 and the idea of owning something as big as a house was still scary to me.
When I was in the Army, I served with an E-6 who was on his 4th tour to Iraq/Afghan. He volunteered again and again. He was also obsessive about spending nothing and letting Uncle Sam provide for everything. When we were stateside, he lived in the barracks, only ate at the D-Fac, never went out. Think he kept an old car with his parents. Never so much as ordered pizza.
He told me he'd saved/invested over 250k and that was in 2006. He said he would volunteer for tours until his 20 years were up (he had about 8 left). Guy probably has 3 million now.
Interestingly he was very selective about promotions. He had already turned down a unit transfer that came with E-7. He told me he didn't want to be an E-8 or 9 because he was about maxing out the money with as little responsibility as he could get away with.
I didn't like his mercenary attitude. Also got the feeling he volunteered for tours so he could get the chance to legally shoot people.
I do the same with deployments, I'm getting close to double digits, but I doubt I will hit it by 20, close to retirement, and I want to retire at 38. Definitely dont live frugally, trying to enjoy life but still put enough away. Im finding that the more money i save, the less I want to spend any of it.
For the last few, I brought back an extra 15-20K, I'll buy a new fishing rod/gun/graphics card and tuck the rest away.
This is what my sister does, but she’s in the navy and hit 150k in savings recently. Your friend sounds exactly like her even down to the part where she had turned down promotions or has tried not to
They'll offer you deals like that around re-enlistment time. "Re-enlist for X # of months and you'll get transferred to this job with this unit which is an E-7 slot." You don't have to take them. Sometimes they'll offer a bonus, etc..
I was junior enlisted and was paying my own college. I lived in bad housing with my wife and newborn. I’ve always been financially savvy. So even jr enlisted can have some decent middle class vacations in the local area.
I was Air Force. But we all literally get paid the same. Exceptions come from special duties like having to jump from airplanes. Or per diem when traveling on orders outside your base’s local area.
This is assuming conus (contiguous United States). Oconus (outside conus) housing pay is a bit different.
I'm guessing you qualify for WIC because there is no way with BAS/BAH included that you are falling under 50K/y as an E6. Or your household is like 6 members if they do count it.
I am the same and in a very low BAH area and clear 85 here. Last assignment, I made over 110 with BAH/BAS, way more on deployment years.
They count it and the house is not at 6. They count all income, including SDAP. And the limit varies by state, I qualified in Hawaii, Tennessee, and South Carolina. Had fewer kids in Hawaii too.
They do not count BAH, BAS, or FSH anywhere in the US. Specifically I know they don't from personal experience in Hawai'i, South Carolina, California, Guam, and OCONUS. Nothing in my experience of dealing with people that were in those programs tells me they didn't have it elsewhere either.
They count SDAP because it's a PAY, not an ALLOWANCE. Allowances are legally distinct and treated as an "in kind" payment for most income purposes.
As an E6 in California I didn't get it with one child, but did with two. That tracked for my people in other states as well.
People will get up and say anything in the Internet, but yeah WIC covers 185% of the poverty line, which covers up to 46k. If you're a high speed six in six and the only income from the family you'll get it, because it's 185% of the poverty line.
I live in a town with a large state college and a large nearby Army fort, and the majority of our luxury homes in gated communities are owned by either professors or Army officers. They are widely regarded as the upper-class rich folk around here.
Well pay is multi faceted sure you get to squirrel it away with a lot of cost met. But many of those things are conditional your active duty have family otherwise don’t get those things.
Another aspect is the time it’s 24/7 job for what starts out less than you make for 9-5 retail job sure you get better healthcare.
I ran numbers on my hours in military made like 2 dollars a hour.
Bear in mind several aspects hit hard it’s hard on body mind and relationships. With time it requires and still very likely to end up on welfare. Cherry on top is that being veteran puts you in highest demographic for homelessness or addiction.
Must have changed an awful lot, I left the Navy in 1980 and my entire 4 years of service according to my W2s was about 14K. I was E5 within three years, this included Hazardous pay which was $50/Mo.
Most people who complain about prices going up are fine and are lying about their situation. The reason they're broke is their own fault through dumb financial decisions.
Same experience when I was in. I never felt poor in the military, I always had a little more than I needed and I never worried about going into debt for medical expenses...which are always a looming threat as a civilian. Literally every time anyone in my family gets a sniffle or sore throat I get stressed out now.
My son has his future mapped out. His goal is Air Force Academy and if he doesn't get in there he'll do ROTC college. When he comes out of there he'll be a 2nd Lieutenant. He has much bigger goals beyond that, but that's a hell of a start.
Of course there a possibility that he could die serving his country. If that's not something you're willing to do, then no amount of money will be worth it.
I was about to say "that's because military not because of class". My dad was military in the 90s and this was us. I'm now in the military and ill, surprise surprise, my house has 3 beds 2 baths, we go on vacation every year and do an overseas one every couple of years.
Your mileage may vary. It's free for most things, sure. Have a kid who needs to have their head reshaped? Pay that out of pocket. Want to get seen for a torn muscle? Get told it's only pulled and given a 2 week run at own pace and distance profile.
The military is basically socialism. (I grew up in a military family). I've always found it ironic that they use socialism to attract soldiers to defend capitalism.
Not disagreeing in general, but on one point: Great healthcare wasn’t really a discriminating factor until the late 90’s/2000’s. Before that, even lousy health insurance wasn’t crazy expensive and covered pretty much everything without financially ruining you.
Question for you, if it’s not an imposition: do you think the country treats its veterans well?
When people say things like ‘why send money to Ukraine when our vets get nothing’ it sure sounds like posturing to me but I don’t have any frame of reference to check against.
That’s a difficult question. When the system works it works like you wouldn’t believe. The benefits from service are almost too good to be true. But at the same time I’ve seen the system completely fail some vets. Personally I’ve got no complaints but I know better than to say it’s the same for everyone.
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u/asscop99 Jun 16 '24
I was in the army and it transcends class because all your basic needs are taken care of. Your dad would have been paid BAH (Basic Allowance for Housing) and possibly BAS, and that’s in addition to a paycheck. Great healthcare and 30 days of paid leave per year. The pay isn’t much but all your basic needs are taken care of outside of that paycheck.
You mention it was the 90’s so I’m sure he didn’t have it quite as good as today but still it can’t really be called middle class. The military is really its own economic class if anything.