[oh8eleven]

Back around 2004, I stood within a military office
In 2005, I revisited Camp Lejeune where I had spent a year ('68-'69).
  The base was essentially the same with one noticeable exception.
  There were new parking lots EVERYWHERE you looked, and the vast majority were filled, primarily by new PU trucks.
That's when I stopped believing that the troops were vastly underpaid ... a claim you still hear today.

[editor-surveyor]

.
But nobody stops paying for their PU or large SUV.

Its the tiny death-trap blister cars that are not worth paying for.
.

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

They are underpaid. Most of these new cars belong to single men you have nothing to spend their money on except alcohol and cars. They live in a dorm and basically their entire check goes to paying insurance and car payment.

[sean327]

The new trucks came about because of Marines being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and not having anywhere to spend the Imminent Danger Pay they received. It happened all over the Marine Corps. Many of them paid cash for their vehicles.