My roommate at Fort Ord was a cook and had the keys to the mess hall for late night snacks (and sometimes cigarettes from the C rations when we ran out).
We lived in a trailer park, living “hand to mouth”.
But, I guess we were a little better off than my friend and her husband.
We had AC, and we had a car, while they only had a motorcycle.
Finally, just a few days before she was due, they scraped up enough money for a used car.
But we were doing well compared to what some military families went through in WWII.
One of my husband’s COs had photos of he and his wife hauling water in a tank mounted on a handcart to the boxcar that they lived in.