On Military Families
More Sobering News
Howdy,
Here’s a sobering bit of news:
According to the survey, the likelihood of active-duty families recommending military service dropped from 55% in 2016 to just 32% in 2023. Active-duty troops, as well as National Guard and reserve family members, all cited time spent away from their families as their top issue with the military.
Not great, Bob.
This should surprise absolutely nobody. My first article as The Bulwark’s Military Affairs Fellow (stand up when you’re talking to me!) was about the deeper reasons for the military recruiting crisis: you can read it here.
Let me pull some quotes (Yes, from myself. Shut it!)
In 2023, the Army, Air Force, and Navy failed to meet their recruiting goals, while the Marine Corps barely met their mark.
The American military is predominantly a family affair, with 80 percent of service members hailing from military families. Yet only 63 percent of veterans would recommend enlisting in the military, a 12-point drop from 2019.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem.
The lights are blinking red. Will anyone pay attention and make changes?
No. Because the vast majority of the population is so far removed from military life, it’s someone else’s problem. More from my article:
Only 12 percent of young Americans believe they have much in common with the military, partly explaining why, in 2019, only 27 percent of young Americans could name all five services.
We are on the precipice of a descent into World War III, with Ukraine, Israel, and a revanchist China on the prowl, and we are struggling to get people to join the military. This should send shivers down everyone’s spine.
It won’t. Something, something, something, “forever wars.” Something, something, something, “defend our borders first.”
I don’t mean to make those issues trivial. Who has two thumbs and thinks we botched the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: this guy right here. Who thinks the border is a mess? This guy is right here.
Nevertheless, we better start taking this seriously. We need a strong military to maintain the liberal international economic order.
Here’s another sobering statistic from the survey:
According to the Blue Star survey, 73% of active duty-affiliated respondents were paying more than $200 a month out-of-pocket for civilian housing options, and 48% of active-duty families noted they had financial stress stemming from general housing costs.
Let’s run the numbers. If you’re a married E-4 (not yet an NCO) with a wife, two kids, and five years of service, your monthly pay would be $3,000. So, good luck with that, bro. Perhaps you live in Kansas City, Missouri; what would you take home in basic allotment for housing: $1600 a month? So, in essence, you would make $55K.
Perhaps you’re thinking, man, that’s not so bad. However, finding a job is a herculean task for many spouses. Try getting a job on base if you’re a spouse. Ha! Bases attract strap hangers from around the community like flies on poop. And once they get government jobs, they never, ever leave.
One of the reasons military base housing is so awful—and by and large, it’s a mess—is that the base commander has only a limited ability to fire civilians who are running the show. This isn’t the time or place to talk about the DoD’s bureaucracy, but it is awful and helps keep people in jobs they should’ve been fired from decades ago.
So, if you’re a spouse, and your husband is banking $55K a year, but he’s gone all the time for work or deployments or whatever stupid shit his commander made him do (I never did that, mind you, but I’ve heard stories :), then how are you supposed to get a job and raise the kids?
Good luck.
When the Air Force decided to light my career on fire despite 1500 days in Iraq and Afghanistan, the lovely Charity was the first one to say, “Why should we tolerate this type of behavior?”
Please don’t feel bad for me. Seriously. I was an occifer. I made good money. It’s more of a case in point. Military spouses aren’t happy with many things, and pay is one of them.
I married late in life (my mother nods vigorously). Nevertheless, I moved 14 times in 20 years. 14! Part of that is because I volunteered to deploy. Regardless, imagine surviving on $55K a year while moving just 7 times in 20 years. Or 5 times?
Relatedly, I would love to ask those family members one question: Does the Afghan withdrawal make you less or more likely to recommend service?
Military families aren’t dumb. They see their husband/wife get disciplined for showing up to work late, but the US military loses a war—and nobody gets held accountable?!?!?!
Why did you make my husband/wife deploy all those times if you were going to retreat from the battlefield? My husband/wife is reeling from issues from those wars, and nobody gets held accountable? He missed all that time from our family, for this?
Again, why would they recommend military service?
The lights are blinking red. We better wake up and take notice before it’s too late and we get humiliated again on the battlefield, but this time against an adversary who will inflict serious damage to our way of life.
Until next time
The other issue: the officer corps refuses to revamp the UCMJ (or push congress to do so), and so the under-22 personnel bracket that makes up a good 70% of the force structure lives like scrubs on base and get harshly reprimanded for the slightest shit, meanwhile—as you stated, nobody in the officer corps gets held accountable for losing 20+ year wars. If there’s anyone who can change this stuff it’s the senior officer corps, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard an senior officer talking about the need to make military more relaxed for junior service members on a basis comparable to the college experience. I mean seriously, can you imagine a college knocking a student’s GPA from 3.6 to 2.6 because that student got caught under-aged drinking? How many future students would be applying to a university that strict? All this talk from the officer corps about “servant leadership” is *nonsense* when they continue a decades-long effort to make the contract force serve under draft-era UCMJ. And guess what? If contract force remains this shitty for off-duty lifestyles they will *need* to bring back the draft when we eventually enter a new state-on-state conflict because they won’t have the numbers to self-sustain a conflict with higher casualty rates than GWOT via recycling contract volunteers that aren’t there.
I'm not often one to post comments, but since pay got brought up I'll throw my two cents in (pun intended).
I was having a discussion with a salty Tech in his 19th year about the pay disparity between O's and E's. His explanation was that year after year there is a blanket raise (I think last year's was around 5%) across the entire force, but a 5% increase for an E-3 is VASTLY different than a 5% increase for even just an O-3, even though they've likely had similar time in service. Over time that gap just continues to balloon.
I'm not trying to suggest the occifers don't deserve the pay they get, just that maybe the annual raise shouldn't be a one sized fits all solution. Having more competitive pay in the E-4 to E-6 range might go a long way in retaining some people especially in the Intel and Cyber communities where the younglings are jumping at any opportunity to get out and make 6 figures (allegedly) in the private sector.
That salty Tech also said there was no way in hell he'd recommend the military to any of his kids, highlighting things like toxic leadership, people that "play the game" getting promoted over people that take care of their subordinates, and people (especially those in high places like politicians) not taking responsibility or being held accountable for their actions.