Realize that my “experience” as a “military spouse” is dated as my (enlisted) ex-spouse retired 18 years ago and NEVER USED his Vietnam-era GI Bill (4 yrs of public college or university + small $400-ish monthly living stipend. I am unclear if he could now use it in “retirement” if he should so choose (he likely wouldn’t, in any case).
Nevertheless, he has continually been and is extremely successful in life!
At the time of our “retirement,” our housing allowance was just $688 mo! Housing allowances for enlistees went up exponentially in the 2000’s. I DO think they are ridiculously high and do not provide the member-family an incentive to live in military housing (with utils paid). They can rent a luxury 1 bdrm apartment and still have money left over for utilities and ALL the cable channels! And that’s without the spouse even working! A civilian married couple, both with GEDs and/or HS diplomas (similar to an E-4 in the military) with both working min wage jobs cannot afford to pay $1800-$1900 month (amt of current E-4 housing allowance) in rent and utilities!
I too, never lived on military housing but have been inside plenty of units in SD. At that time, they were managed by Navy civilians but were VERY spartan compared to today. What you see here now are newer construction units built for the Navy on non-Navy-owned land and complete gut/remodel jobs inside and outside of the older units on long-owned Navy land. I considered them “substandard” at the time. They used to have concrete floors, some with industrial asbestos-type tile or linoleum (similar to the ships) and vinyl “roller shades” in all the windows. The washer and dryer hookups were in the middle of the kitchen with the other kitchen appls. A tenant was allowed to furnish their own rugs if they wished. In two of the complexes, lines of metal trash cans were permanently chained to the sidewalk, being unlocked ONLY by the Navy’s own compactor personnel. These units were “serviceable” but had no other “redeeming qualities.”
For most all of “my era,” spouses were considered a frivolous accessory to a seabag but nevertheless gave an enlistee an additional $150-$300 mo (depending on rank) in “housing allowance” if he/she was married. Soldiers and sailors often marry young because the military has offered them a financial incentive to do so for about the last 40 years (in the form of a “housing allowance”) called “BAQ.” The SD area also had a small “VHA” added to that.
I know there has been a ramp-up of free services provided to enlistees’ families since about 2000, due to the intransigent problems I described earlier in the thread causing readiness for combat and retention problems among married members deployed to grueling back-to-back stints in war zones. Back in the day, it took 2.5 to 3 weeks for “snail mail” to reach a deployed member, due to all the APO/FPO channels it had to make its way thru. If they wrote back and put it in the ship’s PO, it didn’t leave the ship until it ported or a plane or helicopter took it off. They didn’t have access to a phone unless they got liberty at a port and called from a $1-$4 per minute pay phone (too expensive for a young family). The only way a spouse could send an “instant” message to the ship was to wait in long lines at a Red Cross facility with a prepared (limited-word) written message to be sent to the member’s ship, squadron or unit in Morse Code. Up until the early nineties (when they got 3 “free” retired local ham radio operators to send them), the spouses could only send “emergency messages” thru the Red Cross. Requests for these messages were required to have a doctor’s or funeral director’s statement submitted with them.
The naval hospital “suites” were not private and were divided only by cloth curtains which ended about 18″ from the floor. There were up to 36 patients in each “room” excepting the ICU. Champus (now Tricare) in San Diego could ONLY be used at military facilities unless there was no space (rare). There were only two mil pharmacy locations in the county, NAVHOSP and Camp Pendleton Hospital. NAVHOSP pharmacy was outside with a “bus stop” cover over it and wood and metal traincar benches all facing the number-pulling machine and the light showing which number was being served. The commissary cash registers were also outside with a similar cover over them, making it difficult to keep a cart of cold food cold standing in line in the summer.
Technology has allowed current military families to talk and even see their deployed spouse/parent nearly every day or at least once a week. It’s a whole ‘nother world now for military spouses and children. A much better gig than what was experienced by their forebears, who had to be the Jack or Jill of all trades and keep a stiff upper lip for the duration. A good portion of them bailed out of this “canoe club” (up sh!t creek w/o a paddle) very early on :=0
