I dunno. My experience, while short, was having to live off base because there wasn't enough BOQ space.
Housing allowance and COLA didn't really cover the costs of living in Augusta, GA or over in Germany.
It may be a bit better now, since the military is smaller. But I didn't find that I had more money than I knew what to do with.
Now when I look at the education I got (about $50K in mid-1980's dollars) then I got a heck of a deal. Of course, an ROTC scholarship today is not as generous as it was 20 years ago.
You are right, the benefits are pretty good. However, I saw them getting cut, retirements being pushed out, and a bunch of other BS stuff that clinched it for me.
I got out, more than doubled my take home (including those benefits such as BAQ) and was able to rent a nice apartment for less. So for me, it was a no brainer.
I do miss the fellowship that is unique to the military. But the (relatively) low pay, bad hours, and little reward for initiative were enough for me to get out.
For example. I graduated as Honor Graduate (2nd out of about 100, I was most junior) in my Signal Officer Advanced Course. As the most junior officer, was I going to get a command any sooner, or promoted to Captain any sooner. Well, maybe a month sooner. Big deal! I couldn't see myself following these other officers anymore.
I had a Major give me grief about my weight (then 71", 205#, 18" neck and 32" waist, oh and a 48" chest) I would consistently score 285+ on my PT test out of 300, simply because I couldn't max out the two mile run, (sub 12:00 was max IIRC, and 13:05 was as fast as I would go.) Yet these "Burger Bar Rangers" who were in charge of training young Captains themselves could barely pass the PT tests from being away from a line unit. Yet they wanted to tell me that I needed to lose weight. There was no way I could lose enough weight to take 60+ seconds off my run time. I ran slower when I weighed less
I couldn't respect my senior (not superior) officers, so I had to leave. The final straw was as Honor Graduate, they wanted to send me to Fort Polk, LA. Sorry, President Bush is looking to make the military smaller, so I'll do my patriotic duty and resign my commission.
I guess I'm not such a good follower.
TB
