OK, first of all, let me just say, I agree that politicians are grossly overpaid for what they do. There is no reason we should be paying them so much, especially when the rest of the nation is struggling so hard. We do need to make budget cutbacks in their salaries. Point taken.
Now, check this out. "Average salary of a soldier DEPLOYED IN AFGHANISTAN... $38,000".
You guys, that's a lie. There's no other way to say it. OK, so maybe base pay is roughly that, although if we're talking about a mid-career NCO, a senior NCO, or any flavor of officer, it's going to be higher. Now, here's what the average civilian doesn't know. Base pay is far from the whole story. Add to that number these things:
-Housing allowance. This depends on duty zip code, but these days, it's always over $1000. Let's be conservative and say it's about $1500 on average. (If they live on post, they won't see this, but dude... If they live on post, they have a house they don't have to pay for and all utilities included. It balances out.)
-Food allowance. This is only on the enlisted side of the house, but it's an extra $300 every month.
-Special allowances while deployed. Hazardous fire pay, Save Pay (whatever the hell that is), Family Separation Pay... Tack on about $600 a month for all that.
-Also recall that every dime a deployed soldier earns is tax-free.
-If they've been gone more than 12 months, add $1000 a month to the total.
Now, think of all the things they don't have to pay for, things like health insurance. Then think of the things they get for dirt cheap that civilians pay a lot more for, things like that nice $400k life insurance policy, and their retirement. Add about $500-600 a month of their pay that they see in their bank accounts that nobody in the private sector would.
Are you getting the picture? Not only does the average service member NOT make $38k a year. They also see a hell of a lot more of their money than anyone else in the rest of the world does. People have pointed out that it doesn't work out to a hell of a lot per hour because military people work long hours. This is true. There are a lot of jobs like that. We can't really say military pay is crappy because long hours come with it. That's the thing about salary. You have a steady paycheck, but your hours can be anything in the world. Trust me, it beats hourly.
Now, people wonder why I care that this thing is misrepresenting the big picture. What harm is there in it, right? The idea is, people want to pay our military better. How could I possibly have a problem with anything to that end? There are a lot of problems with this.
First of all, it's INCORRECT. Do you have any idea what it's like to go through life with people pitying you because your husband goes and fights a bullshit war for peanuts? Like, that poor thing... her husband is gone, and she has no money. Dude... It's annoying! It's almost as bad as the fact that the lower-enlisted wives in my housing area on post thought I was rich because I was married to the highest ranking soldier on our street. I never wanted to be regarded as rich or poor. I just want reality to be represented accurately.
Secondly, this thing feeds one of the most rampant urban legends in the military. "We are underpaid. Military pay sucks. I/My husband can do better on the outside." This is one thing I never bought into, even as a soldier. I pretty much had to beat it out of Thak, though. He really thought he was below the poverty level as a Sergeant. You'd be surprised how many military people really think they are living at or below the poverty level. At one point, I actually printed up a chart of the federal poverty guidelines, and carried it around in my purse to show to people who said that. That's how rampant that misconception is. Things like this only feed into that.
Finally, on a more practical note, I think our entire nation needs to be a little more up front about how our military is paid, and how that compares to average civilian salaries for certain jobs that it is common for vets to get. Look, it's no secret that a lot of vets fall flat on their faces when they get out of the Army. Why do you think so many are homeless? Even the ones who aren't homeless often have issues anyway. Did you know unemployment is like 30-40% for me and Thak's era of vets? That's insane. It doesn't even take into account the ones who thought they could do so much better on the outside, got offered $40k somewhere (and that's a serious best case scenario), and then found that they couldn't support their family of 5 or 6 on that, and maintain their lifestyle.
This is something we owe it to ourselves as vets to be honest about. That $38k base pay in the military functions a hell of a lot more like $80-100k would in the private sector. Don't believe me? My husband makes $55k a year. By the time it hits our bank account, it's about $2000 a month LESS than he was bringing home in the Army. We went from being able to arrive in a city and find 75% of the houses well within our price range, and buy a new car every couple years, to shoving our family of five into a 2 BR apartment, and selling our second vehicle. Our military friends are shocked by this. They are shocked that we have to live this way. You guys, this is reality. Military pay doesn't suck. I'm not necessarily saying what we make out here sucks either. (What Thak made at BMW, that sucked. This doesn't suck.) I wish it was more straight forward, though.
As it is, we've got civilians donating to things like "Heroes at Home" and "Operation Homefront" which give military people things like holiday shopping trips, when they're probably bringing home less money than the people they're donating to. We've got people saying the military is grossly underpaid when they aren't given the whole story. What's worse, we've got most of the military believing this! I'm not saying that the military shouldn't be paid fairly. They absolutely should, and I believe they are. It's an important job, but not more noble than other jobs. It's just something that has to be done. I did it before. Nobody can accuse me of being anti-military or unpatriotic. I'm a vet, too. I'm just one who remembers that when I enlisted, my income doubled and I acquired benefits for the first time in my life. We just need to look at this stuff for what it is. Soldiers are not scraping by on $38k a year. They're just not.
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