Why the Military Encourages it's Young Soldiers to get Married and Start a Family!

Ok so out of all of my friends/family members that have joined up any of the armed services, airforce through marines, almost every single one of them has gotten married or knocked somebody up, and in ALL of these cases it seems like my friends have just "settled" for the kind of women they're marrying or having children with. All of them are in peak physical condition yet they marry or inpregnate some pretty homely women when they're ACTUALLY for lack of a better term "WAAY HOTTER" than the women they end up with.

This is because the military actually ENCOURAGES them to marry young and start a family nearly as soon as possible. They offer them incentives to get married such as moving out of the barracks and receiving free on-base housing. They also get additional monetary incentives for getting married such as an additional paycheck to support their spouses. They also get even more $$$ for having children as well.

This has happened to my both of my grandpas as well as my step-grandpa, my dad, 4 of my cousins, 2 neighbors, and 3 friends from highschool which is pretty much everybody I know or knew that was in the military off the top of my head.

Why would the military be doing this? Do you think they're just giving out all this extra money and houses out of the kindness of their own hearts? They do this because once you're an enlisted soldier getting crap pay but then getting even more additional money for a family is because now you're going to be forcred to become a "lifer". Since most of these cases take place to enlisted soldiers they know that even if their 4 years are over they are more than likely going to re-sign up for another 2-4-6 years because of the additional sign up bonuses that they'll be able to use for their family. Sure they have the "GI Bill" but how are you going to be able to go to college for free while keeping food in your families stomach? Well by still working for Uncle Sam that's how. My dad started as an enlisted medic had his first child with my mother when she was 20 and was able to go to college while in the military becoming a PA. Oh yea cheating is illegal in the military (even though he did it). He stayed on as an officer until he served his 20 years so he could get his "fat" Captain's retirement check. Anyways all these family values are just an incentive to becoming a slave to the military hoping for the day you'll get your retirement check.

Anything you can do to keep the money flowing for your family until you hopefully "retire" after 20 years. My cousin who was actually lucky enough to get a 100,000 dollar job as a PMC in Iraq got off easier than most other people will trying to get out of the military with a family.

I don't know if its the same in America, but in Australia dating/getting with a soldier is generally frowned upon. At my college most people hate the boys from the army (AJ's) because they are arrogant and expect women to worship them.

He is very right, once you have a family and kids, most guys cant leave, how are they going to get a job quick enough "a good one" to be able to support a family. Its all about keeping the joe stuck there.


Deebo

reply to post by Deebo



You would be complaining if they didn't offer housing and other incentives to married soldiers. You'd probably say they didn't offer them housing and incentives to keep them stuck there.

You cannot win with some people.

The military pay for these extras so their members keep their minds on the business at hand and not worry about their family, so you can waste your time complaining. As far as the type of people they are or marry it's not that way though out the military I assure you, possibly that's the company you keep. Don't throw rocks at the people who keep you safe. Or better still join up and then you can speak with some authority on the subject. And before you ask I spent 25 years in the Navy probably before you were out of shortpants.

You're obviously very young.

I dare you to say to your friends and family, to their face.
Insult their wives.
Insult their careers.
Tell them they don't deserve the little they get for the jobs they do.

They won't be friendly for long.

30+ years here and never married. Not for lack of trying, but none of my ex's wanted to be a Army wife. I'm cool with that, at least they were honest, which was one of the reasons I dated them.

Now that I'm retired though, I think a family wouldn't be such a bad thing and if it ends in divorce, as there is always that possiblity, she won't get a dime of my retirement.

I have never known the military to encourage marriage. It always seemed to be a individual thing. But one thing I can comment on is the amount of affairs was astounding and the divorces were never amicable either.

That is one figurative bullet I'm glad I dodged!

Maybe these men you are talking about, who married these women..... Maybe they thought those women were beautiful..... Just because you thought they were not pretty, does not mean a thing....

complete rubbish, I have been military for 10 years now. Yes they do give you financial benefits forfamilies, becase we are living on the poverty line and would have a hard time supporting dependents without the extra support.

Nobody "encourages" youto get married and have babies, and on that note, the reason people cant leave is because of economic collapse and bad job market.

15 years ago with my current training I could have worked for 35 dollars an hour in the civilian market, but the job market now is volatile and insecure. My crrent military job is secure.

This is pure opinion based post and has no facts.

Thanks

Hey first off I want to let you guys know that I completely respect everybody sticking their neck out on the line. I was born 2nd generation military family with practically a gun in my hand. I'm just stating what I have observed. It sucks that veteran's can't get jobs... But's I'm just telling it as I see it. I love our soldiers but I hate what they have to go through.
This is off topic but I worked at a VA hospital in Seattle and I was disgusted at the "free" healthcare they get at those places. They try and make it look like working for the VA is cutting edge and patriotic but if you were to ever compare a regular hospital to a VA hospital you can see the vast difference in how our soldiers and veterans get treated as opposed to the general public in regular hospitals that "paying" or "insured" civilians get it's absolutely disgusting... Our soldiers do deserve better. Especially when you see all the state of the art equipment and labs that various tribal health centers get which the natives have available for free courtesy of our federal government when a lot of them don't even do anything to deserve it.
But as I was saying all the young people I've known except for 1 that have enlisted (they are all enlisted) have either got married, or have had children. And you can ask people in military families and they'll tell you it's absolutely true, I mean it's just obvious when you look at it that it seems so advantageous for these kids to get married for a house and extra pay to them.

reply to post by Swing80s


How is it encouraging them?
A married couple can't live in the dorms or barracks with the single military members, as they are not co-ed.
Getting extra pay for dependents? Maybe because the military pay is low and in order to bring most of the first 4 enlisted ranks up to the poverty level, they provide additional monies.
The single GI has low pay, but does not have to cook their meals, where as the married GI someone in the home does. Alas, the reason for base housing, the dorms/barracks don't have kitchens.

Maybe is it that the GI with a support system at home helps ease some of the tensions?

You want to know the truth? Are you SURE you REALLY want to know the truth? I will give you time to think about it first.

Ok have you decided? If you want to press forward than continue reading. If not then stop reading here.

So you decided to keep going then? Ok here is the truth. The military encourages people to get married so that they will want to spend more time at work. If you have to go home to some fat spouse sitting on the cough eating snacks watching T.V complaining the second that you walk through the door deployments to Afghanistan will start to look better and better. Staying later at work when you are not deployed starts to look better and better. Going home to your 300 pound fat spouse who complains all day or dodging a few haji IED's.

reasons:

1. child support insures re-enliestment
2. divorces cause financial pain, broke? gotta re-up
3. miltary brats have a higher enlistment rate than civilians and higher retention rates (used to the lifestyle)


i was miltary brat. joined military, got divorced, pay chld support stuck signing away more years as a result...


And some military dudes are homely, get a waaay hotter girl BECAUSE they are military...

Wow. Ummm, housing is NOT free. We pay for it. It is a little something we get for our sacrifice. We are not forced to do anything. People stay and keep re-enlisting because there are no jobs out there. The government is screwing up our economy so bad, oh AND by the way, talking about taking away our benefits one at a time, including our retirement. However, most of us are re-enlisting because we have something called 'a sense of responsibility' that drives us to do the right thing and ensure we have a steady job. Much like in civilian life, your job sucks, you have a family, then you keep that crappy job. Now the military on the other hand UNLIKE the civilian world actually can set you up with a job. 90 days before you end your time in service you start a process in which they help you transition from military to civilian life.

I am just curious where you get your information from. First off, you pretty much trashed your friends and your own family, based on what you see from them and what they tell you, oh, and I somewhat doubt you have many "active duty friends" but on the chance that you do, let me say that they also don't know what they are talking about. Probably Privates in the military with very little experience or understanding of the military, and as for your family, did they really tell you very much about it? Every person has a different experience in the military. Just like every job. There are people in every field who love and then those who hate their jobs.

I have been in the military for 6 years now. It's hard, I get little thanks, and I really don't make very much money. I don't stay in because I am locked in, I stay in because it's a good job. Being that you have not served, you have no room to say anything at all about the military.

People do not just deploy to "get away from their fat or homely wives". People are not encouraged to get married. If anything, they are encouraged NOT to. When a friend of mine got out of the military after 5 years, he got out with $90,000 in his account. Because he was smart with his money. A single soldier, who didn't just sit there and party like so many others do. You keep much more money when you are single. I don't know why you think that we get extra money for being married or having kids.

Married, you get about $250 a month called BAS, which is separate rations,
Single, you get a meal card, for eating at the dining facilities on post. which equals about $250 a month, for 3 meals a day.

Therefore, we both get the same amount, but we have the choice of spending that money at the d-fac or at the store for food. Now if a soldier misses a meal at the d-fac due to training or whatever, he is not charged for that meal (or should not be, there are forms you can fill out for missed meal vouchers for all you younger single soldiers who may not know this)

BAH (basic allowance for housing) - based off of rank, kind of makes up for the lack of pay we get so that we can provide a home for our spouses or children. not very much money. We can live on or off post with this money..

Single soldiers - live in the barracks not with no utility bills, private bathrooms, only having to pay for luxuries such as cable/internet.

However, our BASE pay remains the same, married or not, SO in the end, a smart single soldier will ALWAYS take home more money each paycheck than a married soldier one pay grade higher.


Oh, BTW. People get married, and they have kids. It's what humans do. It's not limited to military personnel only. There are plenty of people higher and lower ranking who are NOT married, who decide to make careers out of the military with nothing tying them in except the fact that they want to.