When you were in the military, did you negotiate your pay, or did the government just tell you what your salary was?
Did you get to shop around for your equipment, choose what you wanted to use? Or did the government just tell you what weapon to carry, or what pack to wear on your back?
When I served, pay was based on rank, plus a few fixed adjustments (e.g. I got hazardous duty pay for airborne.) No negotiations. The government decided what equipment we used, what healthcare we got, even what food we ate.
From an economic perspective, the military I served in had much in common with socialism. [/quote]
Unless you went in prior to 1975 and were drafted, then you volunteered for that environment where those parameters (fixed pay, healthcare, etc) were well known going in.
