We want our service members of rank at least E-5 or higher to have the opportunity to grow a healthy solid family, to eventually buy a home in a decent area. E-4s and below can live in barracks or rent apartments in town and should be counseled as to costs associated with having children at such low ranks. It doesn’t take that long to be promoted to E-5 so they should know to wait before having children (at one time you could not be married until a rank of E-5 was attained). And we want them all to eventually have children and to have a great home environment for their children.
There is a way to achieve the above and it does not require anything new, it only requires looking back to the military life of yesteryear, not so long ago actually.
Before severe military budget cuts were made starting in the GHW Bush presidency, military members of certain ranks could live in a modest home on base and their children went to military schools which were rated higher than public schools. They could save a lot of their pay for a down payment on their eventual first home purchase.
Single-family homes of modest design are not expensive and can be put up quickly on bases. Rather than raise military pay to meet the high costs of living offbase and providing prey to liar loan scammers, the idea is to remove the prey from the con artists waiting to push them into GSE guaranteed loans they cannot afford, pushing them into financial distress, perhaps to foreclosure, to divorces, to children raised in broken homes. The social military family bloodbath created by predatory loan brokers is every bit as devastating as cocaine, meth, heavy alcohol.
Most young military families are unfamiliar with how to manage finances. Many commands have required such families to get financial counseling and lectures as a matter of routine. This has gone on for decades, it is not new.
What has happened in recent decades to the military family way of life is not something to be proud of. The benefits and subsidies have been ‘outsourced’ to predators who see young military families as food.
As the cost of living has escalated the service pay has not kept up forcing many military families to wade into risky credit situations.
Here’s an example:
A military parent is getting paid at the end of the week. The family needs to pay rent and there’s not much left for food and utilities, etc. The parent receives on any given week several flyers and mailers about applying for a credit card. The family applies and receives a credit card with a $300 credit line, just enough to buy food until the next payday.
After about 6 months, the military family has paid their $300 credit card balance on time responsibly. The credit card company rewards them by ‘automatically’ increasing their credit line to $1500. The addiction grows, the loanshark pushes more of the financial meth, the family acts responsibly for a time until an incident or event occurs such as a death in the family, a marriage, a vehicle breakdown, etc. any event that causes the family to step outside their ‘responsibility zone’ and use the extra credit line.
Before they know it, the upright responsible military family is in a lot of debt and they struggle to get out from under it as the service member’s pay is stretched to more than they can bear. Often this forces the spouse to seek work outside the home to make ends meet. As the family is stressed, thoughts of separation or divorce begin to emerge and a path to a breakdown comes into view.
Before Bush 41, this scenario was not so prevalent because the military was much more supportive of military housing for families and education for military children. This kept military families insulated from the civilian loan practices that have grown today to be predatory.
In Today’s World, living within one’s means is vital but not always feasible with a family to take care of. A military member can live within his/her means if they remain unmarried, childless, living in low-rent apartments and staying out of the way of most civilians. It’s doable that way but is not healthy for future generations of military members and certainly not an attractor for recruitment.
“We want our service members of rank at least E-5 or higher to have the opportunity to grow a healthy solid family, to eventually buy a home in a decent area.”
The Army used to say lieutenants may not marry; captains may marry; majors should marry.
It’s a bit more complicated in the Navy.
I made E-5 in three years so it's safe to assume that had I made a career in the Army, I would have at least made E-8 after 34 years of service. In today's wages, that E-8 is now making about 15K more than I was when I retired in 2006.
And if any of my military time was in a combat zone, it would have been tax free with an additional $225 per month as well as additional benefits for my family.
Add to that, free healthcare for me and my family as compared to what I was paying to my employer and still paying for my secondary coverage.
As a side note, I spent last Easter at my niece's house for dinner and was privileged to meet her neighbor who was a 44 year old Lt. Colonel with 24 years of service with the Army Corps of Engineers..........
A Lt. Colonel with over 20 years of service is currently making a base pay of over $108K.........That's pretty darn good money..........
I don’t know what service you were in, but the Air Force sure didn’t require you to be an E-5 to be married. Not in 1962 when my parents were married, and not in 1981 when I was married.
The upper ranks were always the ones who received base housing before the lower ranks, even though the lower ranks were the ones who could have used that housing with the electricity and water paid.
My parents were forced into housing in Alaska by the command. Someone with some common sense realized that the lower ranks could not afford to rent and pay the utilities on the economy.
I will agree that the smart thing to do would be to wait until reaching NCO before getting married and then wait a couple of years to have children, but in no way, shape or form, do I think we have the right to tell someone when to get married or have children. Just because you sign on the dotted line to defend our country it doesn’t make you a slave.