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Update:
Spoke to a recruiter online took me a while after a few a holes disconnected me and apparently they only offer 10k in loan repayment. So screw that.
Join the Army........ they pay out the most by far!
Will the AF pay off my student loans? What are the enlistment lengths in the AF? What's a typical day like for a Public Affairs Officer and the hours? As a PAO would I have the opportunity to be based overseas?
If you want to be in a Public Affairs field and want your loans repaid up to $30k a year and serve your fellow citizens abroad think about the foreign service as well. I'm assuming the demand of FSOs in the middle-east today is greatly required and that the adjustment of pay may be around 70k for even a junior officer.
Join the Army........ they pay out the most by far!
You got to go deeper than that, man! So if you simply join the army I'm guaranteed no matter what to get paid more no matter what?
So many factors...I will say with the army, you deploy, A LOT therefore you potentially always get family separation assuming you have a family, hostile fire pay and tax free money. However, if you get a different branch and are lucky enough to be on TDYs, you can turns those into free vacations...
You got to go deeper than that, man! So if you simply join the army I'm guaranteed no matter what to get paid more no matter what?
So many factors...I will say with the army, you deploy, A LOT therefore you potentially always get family separation assuming you have a family, hostile fire pay and tax free money. However, if you get a different branch and are lucky enough to be on TDYs, you can turns those into free vacations...
Hmm.
The Navy pays more than the Army or Air Force or Marines.
When you say that the Army deploys a lot, I must point out here that they rarely deploy.
I did 7 months of each year underwater, year after year for 14 years.
Then when I got away from living underwater, I deployed overseas [doing the easy kind of junk that the Army does] and I did 6 years overseas.
The Navy pays more than the Army or Air Force or Marines.
When you say that the Army deploys a lot, I must point out here that they rarely deploy.
I did 7 months of each year underwater, year after year for 14 years.
Then when I got away from living underwater, I deployed overseas [doing the easy kind of junk that the Army does] and I did 6 years overseas.
All about odds...I saw the post that says the navy has a lot of special pays...But what are the odds you are going to see the majority of them? If you simply get stationed stateside and have a job you rarely leave port you won't make more than the other services. Overall, odds are if you are army, you can plan on deploying, then you get all the special pays I mentioned above.
All about odds...I saw the post that says the navy has a lot of special pays...But what are the odds you are going to see the majority of them? If you simply get stationed stateside and have a job you rarely leave port you won't make more than the other services. Overall, odds are if you are army, you can plan on deploying, then you get all the special pays I mentioned above.
I got most of the allowances and extra pays for 18 of my 20 year career.
A first term sailor is 99% likely to get his first set of orders to a ship. The Navy does not recruit to fill bases. Shore duty is highly valued and usually only sailors with over 5 years of sea duty can get orders to shore.
99% of all sailors that you see on a Navy base are stationed onboard a ship, tied up to a pier and are only there resupplying. Or else they are attending a school.
The Navy deploys far more than any other service that I am aware of.
You will need to pay them by living frugal and using part of your take home pay to pay your debt load.
If you are considering the military lifestyle, and you need to pay off debts; I would be asking around, as to which branch pays the highest take home pay.
Until my 18th year in uniform I had thought that all branches paid roughly the same level of pay. We were living in Naples Italy, in a housing complex with Army, Marine, Air Force and Navy families, and I got to know other E6s all with 15 to 20 years in service.
I was shocked at the differences in take home pays.
We all got the same base pay. Some branches got tax-free status while working side-by-side with branches who did not get it.
In the case of the Navy personnel, we were getting more other pays and allowances [which is the norm for us], while the Air Force personnel got only base pay.
At the time base pay would have been about a third of my pay check. But those families were only getting base pay and nothing else.
Some branches have wonderful huge bases, and they assume that by providing everything you need [swimming pools, cafeterias, movie theaters, golf courses, etc] that you simply do not need any further money.
The Navy way of looking at life is that the Navy needs a base to be a row of piers and warehouses. The focus being on supporting those ships and subs. So the Navy does not desire to get into the housing business. the only time the Navy has the ability to feed people is when they are living on a ship. the same goes for providing Rec facilities. So the Navy prefers to pay personnel to house themselves, to feed themselves, and to amuse themselves.
The Navy routinely sees tax-free service. It is common to serve for decades where your salary is completely tax-free. I was tax-free from 1983 until I retired in 2001.
Each branch may pay Re-Enlistment bonuses to attract trained personnel to stay in uniform.
Just ask any navy recruiter how much the current SRB level is for a ET1 Nuclear Reactor Operator, buckle your seat belt, as it will take a few minutes for him to look it up, but then $90k will be his answer.
I was not a nuc, but I got $65k every 4 years when I re-upped.
Also when you look at the pay charts, keep in mind that the Navy commonly pays sailors bunches of the extra pays and allowances.
During most of my career, I got:
BAQ,
BAS,
COLA, VHA,
Sub pay,
Career sub pay,
Sea pay,
Career sea pay,
Sea pay kicker,
Female separation pay,
All in addition to base pay.
It is tempting to take a commission as an officer, assuming that officers earn more money than enlisted do. Officer pay charts are higher when looking at base pay, for lower ranking personnel.
I have known many sailors who got degrees while serving in uniform [I did]. A few to them went to OCS and became LDOs, some of us did not. I did not. Once you get half way through a career, if you are good at ladder climbing, you notice that an E9 gets paid better than an LDO does.
Also officers do not get SRB, or many of the other regular pays that NCOs get paid.
So if you only consider base pay, than it is commonly assumed that offices will earn more money. However when looking at take home pay, such is not the case.
Good luck with your career.
May God bless you.
Hello Beekeeper: My husband earned his Master in Medical Science in 2003 as is working as a PA-C [Physician Assistant] currently a civilian working at Ft Sill Army Base. He has been thinking of commissioning for the Navy. We have been waiting to meet with a Medical Recruiter to get all the details.
This decision in partly based on our desperation to pay our large student loan debt. Also, we always wanted to live overseas (Naples sound fantastic) and give our 5 and 4 year old kids an experience of a lifetime. I, as a wife, I am open to anything that will benefit my family.
What would you recommend a friend in our situation. Any advise or comment will be great. Thanks
Hello Beekeeper: My husband earned his Master in Medical Science in 2003 as is working as a PA-C [Physician Assistant] currently a civilian working at Ft Sill Army Base. He has been thinking of commissioning for the Navy. We have been waiting to meet with a Medical Recruiter to get all the details.
This decision in partly based on our desperation to pay our large student loan debt. Also, we always wanted to live overseas (Naples sound fantastic) and give our 5 and 4 year old kids an experience of a lifetime. I, as a wife, I am open to anything that will benefit my family.
What would you recommend a friend in our situation. Any advise or comment will be great. Thanks
Go for it.
There are bunches of bases overseas, in each case you get a wonderful opportunity to live in a different culture, and see things that you would never see living stateside.
Don't let money be the deciding factor in choosing which service to join, all services pay the same. I'm in the Air Force and I work with all services-you won't regret joining the Air Force.
If I'm not mistaken, some of the military Public Affairs functions are being done by civilians and contractors. you might consider looking into that angle...
I was just thinking that myself. I worked in 4 different command sections and don't recall anyone in uniform working in Public Affairs or the Protocol Office. It's a dying career in the military. There was a Staff Sergeant at Luke AFB who worked protocol, but that poor thing was basically the manual laborer who had to sweat it out while the perfectly coiffed PA civilian stood around barking orders (then taking credit for all of the work). Even the protocol and PA people at Ramstein were civilians brought over to the base on orders.
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