[quote=bearishgurl][quote=briansd1]Regardless of the semantics and the details, $1/2 million NPV for the pension is in the low range. Add medical, spousal benefits, educational subsidies, VA mortgages, etc… and we end up with much more.
As harvey mentioned, can we afford this largesse?
BG, BTW, my good buddy is a retired Navy pilot and we talk about it. He knows he got a great deal.
As the real estate “expert” in our group of friends, I even helped him buy his house with a no money down VA loan.
He did sleep on ships and barracks in his younger days. But later in his career, when he was in Korea for 2 years on assignment, the government rented him a luxury $3,500 per month (nomimal money in the early 2000’s) apartment in central Seoul.
The government trained him straight out of college, and gave led him all the way. He had a lot of time off and goofed around a lot.
Most of us in the private sector have to provide our own training else companies won’t hire us.[/quote]
brian, your “Navy pilot” friend was an officer. Always studying was an enlistee who entered the service right out of HS. There is a chasm of difference. Did your “Navy officer” friend remain single throughout his career? The typical “enlistee” marries and has kids early and if their spouse proves not to be self-reliant and supportive of their “career” (incl repeated and back-to-back deployments), their “civilian lives” can easily spiral into a living nightmare. To spend likely their entire military career earning 6+ years worth of college credits part-time is asking A LOT of their spouses and family. Even in the rare instances when they are actually home for long-stretches, they are studying. This is NOT the norm for enlistees. Most of them return home to a mismanaged quagmire that needs to be unraveled (mostly financial mismanagement by the spouse and spouse desertion … yes, even with the kids :=0). I don’t have to tell you that the divorce rate is sky-high among enlistees.
Active-duty military are eligible for “housing,” but it is not “free.” Their housing allowance is garnished from their pay when they live in housing. It can be a “hardscrabble existence” for a spouse stuck in housing with kids as the vast majority of enlisted spouses are not “locals” and have never lived away from “home” and many have even written a check in their lives! Many, many of them abandon military housing in the middle of deployments and move back to their “home state” to parents’ houses with their kids in tow, leaving their sponsors to “clean up the mess” upon return. Some never move into military housing at all. They remain in their “home state” with parents and await return of the deployed spouse.
It’s a culture shock for an 18-23 yo military spouse with kids from rural USA to be dumped in the middle of a SD military housing project days or weeks before their spouse deploys.
Alway studying has come a lo-o-o-ng way, IMO.[/quote]
BG, once again you are right that the military housing allowance is deducted when you live in base housing. I only lived in base housing for six months, I would never do it again. The housing in San Diego is privatized. Lincoln Military Housing controls the housing in the San Diego area. I lived in the Linda Vista E-6 and up housing for 6 months, my rent was my full housing allowance ($2400) a month, and the house was in BAD shape.
The issues you bring up about enlisted servicemen having trouble in their marriages is why I support the services instituting regulations that forbid service members on the first enlistment from getting married. Gen Mundy the Commandant of the Marine Corps tried it in 1993, but had to revoke it after 1 day. Young married Marines can be a serious leadership challenge, as they and their new spouse are not emotionally ready to handle the lifestyle of long stretches of time away from each other.
This brings me to another point. Why do people join enlist in the military and immediately start having kids? I have seen 20 year old E-3’s with three kids complaining they have no money. And then the media cries that we need to support our military families. What needs to happen is that military members need to realize that the pay sucks, and if you let your wife (or husband) sit at home and pop out babies then your life is going to suck also. End of rant.
