His point being - we don’t do it for the money.
I always saw the Marines as rather like a monastic order. Most aren’t going into it for the money - and in some ways increased poverty focuses one on the other reasons for service.
Maybe the Marine can get his whole family to live in the tent with him.
“His point being - we don’t do it for the money.”
No, we don’t do it to get rich. But we do expect to be properly compensated so our families are safe while we’re deployed. Cutting my pay when everything else increases is not good for my morale.
They’re cutting the budget, forcing people out. What this really is is a little something to help people make that decision on their own.
I didn’t enlist in the Corps in 1969 for the money. Hell, I made about $90 a month and shortly after $124.50 a month BEFORE taxes. That was as much as I made part time while going to school. When I was commissioned into the AF I made 1/3 less than my graduating counterparts in their first post-college jobs; again, not for the pay or to get rich.
I served during periods when the pay was not even close to comparable to civilian jobs. It was service to country and the Constitution that I loved about my service time and in my current civilian position I make much less than most at my age but I love what I do.
That said, most serving today and many back then had families and responsibilities and a desire to at least be comfortable. Taking away pay will do nothing to raise discipline or make them feel “less entitled”, whatever that is supposed to mean. The guys today would not be sticking around with close rotations into combat and to remote assignments if they felt entitled. Just pay and provide the medical, etc that was promised when they signed on or re-upped.
I opposed the pay hikes and changes to living quarters that came about in the late eighties. This made me unpopular with many of my peers, but my thinking was and is that:
1. The nation is better off with more people within the populace knowledgeable in war fighting.
2. People serve best who do not go on to draw a pension. The nation was already heading for default on pensions due to the pyramid nature of unfunded civil service pensions. More military pensions add to that.
3. Low pay and harsh working conditions keep slackers out. Certainly they only serve one tour.
4. Military life is crap on your spouse and children. A man needs to leave after the tour he is serving and go be a good parent. Low pay may make him do the right thing even if he wants to stay in. (Feel free to flame me on this one, I am up to taking your kid's part against your part.)
5. Harsh living conditions are unappealing to hedonists, and eighty percent of liberals are hedonists.
Over the past few decades, some of the guys who thought I was an anal orifice have come to my side of the debate. Things have changed in the direction I predicted that they would.
I am not going to throw the Commandant overboard on this one.
The Marine Corps is not there to give anyone a comfortable life.
If you want that, they don't need you.
Semper Fidelis.