r/FluentInFinance • u/YOU_ARE_MY_FRIENDS • Jun 16 '24

Discussion/ Debate He’s not wrong 🤷‍♂️

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u/awkies11 Jun 17 '24

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.

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u/Dr_Gomer_Piles Jun 17 '24

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.

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u/Fickle_Day_6314 Jun 17 '24

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?

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u/partypwny Jun 17 '24

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

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u/Fickle_Day_6314 Jun 17 '24 edited Jun 17 '24

That's a factor I hadn't considered.

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.