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Our tuition is paid for through the Post 9/11 GI Bill, but that's not all! We also get books paid for, up to $1000 a year along with basic housing allowance paid out each month equivalent to E-5 with dependent for the school's zip code.
...and to top it off, folks like myself who enlisted in Texas get something that is called the Hazlewood Act. My child now has access to 150 hours towards a state school.
If you ask me if they are getting too much, I would have to say "no." I'm a military spouse so I know; however, many civilians think that this is the case. BTW my husband is deployed for his second time.
I think its pretty disgusting that military gets FREE housing to live where ever you want and FREE food, $1300 tax free per month on top of their basic pay, basic pay averaging like $30,000 per year over 8 years enlisted. thats $46,000 per year, a lot of it tax free. I dont know what these military people are complaining about. Then they get FREE education that costs normal people thousands. The US economy is tanking now because it has to print and borrow all this money to pay for things we cant afford. and tanking the value of normal citizens dollars that dont get all this free stuff, so that military can buy booze, tvs and cars. I lived in Colo Springs for 10 years surrounded by bases, saw it go down. meanwhile I'm struggling with a basic job in the REAL economy without all these free bonuses.
Why do we see all this jealousy nowadays? Oh and dig up a three year old thread to complain about your envy? Interesting. If you would really like to know why the military gets paid in the way that it does, volunteer. There's nothing like walking in someone else's shoes, right?
Well, you have to take a few things into perspective on this. 1) They don't have to pay for their food. 2) They don't have to pay for their stay wherever it is. 3) They don't have to pay for the fuel, ammunition, supplies, etc. 4) The most important: Nobody forced any of these men/women to enlist in the first place. There is no draft, so these individuals putting themselves into this situation of fight for another country. If they don't like it, maybe they shouldn't have joined. The other thing is that they are paid regardless of if they do their job or not. A friend of mine that just went back to Iraq was telling me that the Hummvee mechanics are basically worthless. They didn't care if the vehicles were fully operational or not because they get paid no matter what. The contract mechanics were paid only when their job was complete.
I love posts like this, the ones from toads too fat/scared/dense to serve.
I don't believe this guy has a friend, though. He's lying.
Let's see... you get "free" housing for yourself. As for "military housing" you must be an E-3 or greater, have a family, and be put on a waiting list (the list is pretty huge in my area.....).. Then, maybe if you're lucky, you might get to live in it about a year before being moved to a different base.
As for pay, E1 and E2 are in the "SOL" group because you don't get enough pay to live off of base. It's about $1300-1400/month. You don't qualify for housing allowances *to live off base* until you make E3... then you have to apply for it, and you might get denied for any number of reasons.
Military Pay charts and allowances (http://www.dfas.mil/army2/militarypaycharts/2007MilPaycharts-cc.pdf - broken link)
Officers can make a pretty penny... but the base pay of the enlisted... is shoddy at best.
Even out of times of war, the military don't get paid enough for what they do. Not everybody in the military is a "grab a gun and go shoot" person. Military hospitals? Those are military personnel working there... and 9 times out of 10 making less than their civilian counterparts.
The free healthcare bit... it's only free if you go to a military hospital. Military dependents usually get seen outside of the military hospital, where there are co-pays and such. This much I do know from experience. Civilians may not get "free" health insurance (Except welfare), but most get it through their jobs, so.. since this is their job, why not?
Free housing.. the barracks or whatever you want to call them.... it's not as "great" as you'd think. In a lot of places, the barracks are 60+ years old, cockroach infested and downright nasty. But some bases really maintain their barracks. I'd rather room with 3 or 4 other personnel off base. Even without housing allowances.
My foster daughter has been in the National Guard for about 21 years. She has been an E-8 for over 10 years and after three deployments in the Middle East (2 solid years in Kuwait) and one in Afghanistan is waiting around for her second knee which they operated on to heal. She lives in her own home and works in an Army recruitment center not so far from her house. She says that her take home pay is about $5,000 per month which is a considerable less that she got in Europe. Soon she will be released back to the National Guard and the pay will go down considerably but she has always liked the pay even for National Guard.
spent my time in 'Nam. got no pension at all. makes me a fool, I guess.
It just flat makes you too old, Greg. All the goodies that have come into being since the draft was dropped to entice men and women to serve that long just weren't there when the draft was in existence.
Yes! "Career" military (those with 20 yrs or more) receive extremely generous pensions and healthcare for life for themselves and family. Which other industry compensates its employees like that?
Hell no. Those guys and girls deserve every penny that they get. I do think that civilian government workers are overpaid, including myself. It's the military though, they are on-call 100% of the time. Sometimes you have higher up ranks that DO get paid way too much and it is highly unlikely that they will get deployed somewhere because of their job nature. But, for those who put their life on the line, they aren't overpaid if you ask me.
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