I did 1968-1976. As an Airman Basic, I remember my first advance pay was a twenty a five and a one. I had to give the one to a damned barber to whack off my hair.
After basic, it was about $94 a month that stayed pretty much around there until I went “over two.”
After 8 plus years as an E-5 my monthly pay was $597.30 with another $153 thrown in for housing. Me and the wife subsisted on Stouffers Macaroni and Cheese (at 25 cents) and our son got everything else, including all the heat in our electric house.
Nobody ever told me about “investments” and “bonds” and 401Ks - just that 50% basic pay stuff of retirement. The only so-called good-thing I got back then was an additional life insurance policy for $15K that cost ONLY $33.65 a month and I could get it all back at ‘age 65’...problem was that ‘age’ was the policy age - Metropolitan Life Insurance Company folks.. thieving bastards! Screw the hell out of Snoopy.
I will say this, and I believe it was my godsend. The GI Bill. I used that to pay for books and tuition all through my three years at Georgia Institute of Technology where I went on to a much better life.
Those hardships are behind me and my family now, and we are all the better for it. Yet I can’t help remember back to things like no 401Ks, no bonds, lower-than-low pay and endless absence (7 of 8 years overseas).
Now that I have over 5 years civilian federal service, my military time is added for pension purposes, and I now get 8 hours annual leave per pay period.
I also used the GI bill to pay for my masters degree, and ROTC paid for college. Overall it worked out great IMO.