To add to this, something I like to point out to people, but (for the US) only ~60% of military personnel are ever deployed. Of those 60% only 10-20% will ever see combat. To top that off ~25% of the military are actually civilian service members, people who work for the military but are not soldiers.
So in summary, for each soldier that sees combat there are:
~6 deployed soldiers who will never see combat.
~11 non-deployed soldiers who never will be.
~6 civilian military staff who will probably never need to move for work.
Of these 24 people, all have access to the commissary, retirement and pension, top tier insurance, paid child care, up to 26 days of paid time off with 13 sick days and 11 fed holidays. The only things the military civilians don’t get are the VA, loan programs, and special protections.
So unless you’re a complete block head with no skills or talent your odds of joining the military and basically getting socialism with no risks is pretty high. Remember this the next time someone gets mouthy about respecting “the troops” or “serving their country,” odds are they didn’t do shit.
I used to work with a whole group of guys who their whole military career (20 years) was running a wastewater treatment plant on an Air Force base in the US, that’s it.
It may have changed since then, but after my dad left the USAF in the early '80s, my mom was a civilian employee on the base for a bunch of years, and we didn’t have access to any of the additional benefits. I know that we couldn’t go to Aaffes, the Px, or use any base services. Not sure about retirement / insurance at that time, but we certainly didn’t take advantage of insurance if it was available.
About the only thing we had access to was some of the Recreation services: My mom worked at Arts and Crafts, and that was attached to the Auto Hobby and Wood Shop so they let employees use those facilities, along with the place where we could rent lawnmowers and other recreation equipment.
To add to this, something I like to point out to people, but (for the US) only ~60% of military personnel are ever deployed. Of those 60% only 10-20% will ever see combat. To top that off ~25% of the military are actually civilian service members, people who work for the military but are not soldiers.
So in summary, for each soldier that sees combat there are:
Of these 24 people, all have access to the commissary, retirement and pension, top tier insurance, paid child care, up to 26 days of paid time off with 13 sick days and 11 fed holidays. The only things the military civilians don’t get are the VA, loan programs, and special protections.
So unless you’re a complete block head with no skills or talent your odds of joining the military and basically getting socialism with no risks is pretty high. Remember this the next time someone gets mouthy about respecting “the troops” or “serving their country,” odds are they didn’t do shit.
I used to work with a whole group of guys who their whole military career (20 years) was running a wastewater treatment plant on an Air Force base in the US, that’s it.
It may have changed since then, but after my dad left the USAF in the early '80s, my mom was a civilian employee on the base for a bunch of years, and we didn’t have access to any of the additional benefits. I know that we couldn’t go to Aaffes, the Px, or use any base services. Not sure about retirement / insurance at that time, but we certainly didn’t take advantage of insurance if it was available.
About the only thing we had access to was some of the Recreation services: My mom worked at Arts and Crafts, and that was attached to the Auto Hobby and Wood Shop so they let employees use those facilities, along with the place where we could rent lawnmowers and other recreation equipment.