Why does Veeky Forums pathologically hate the military or anyone who serves?

Why does Veeky Forums pathologically hate the military or anyone who serves?

Is there no benefit to be had?

Is it just a meme?

it doesn't pay much, the benefits suck and it doesn't prepare a person for other careers.

so it's a poor financial choice for almost everyone that joins, and only the truly desperate or stupid tend to take it.

other than that there's nothing inherently honorable or dishonorable in fighting wars. It's a job, like flipping burgers or scrubbing toilets.

If you get into the officer class then it is worth it especially if you get a STEM degree with the job.
Only enlist if your parents want you out of the house. When I graduated high school my mom went loony and wanted me to leave so that my parents could have enough money to buy a 4 bedroom house with 2 bedrooms being used as her personal studies or whatever mad thing her mind was filled with.
Luckily my dad dragged her to the psychiatrist and I didn't have to enlist.
In short you enlist when your only choices are being homeless or enlisting.

Veeky Forums knows absolutely nothing about business. We really don't, they specifically have people who approve of monopolies here, think coinbits are the future and trade shit stocks.

I mean really this place is a book on how-to NOT run your finances

Gonna play devil's advocate for a bit so don't take any of this personally bc I don't have any emotional attachment to these arguments


What about officers? Seen a fair amount of anons saying they were going into a commission program here

>doesn't pay much
But they also get to keep most of their salary rent/food free

>benefits suck
Clarify? Afaik the health insurance deal is pretty sweet, along with GI bill et al which pay for higher education.

>doesn't prepare a person much for other careers

This one I REALLY don't believe, being an officer would give pretty great mamagerial experience (especially in terms of resume)

Plus there's so many different engineering fields that don't even require a degree that all branches (especially army/navy) will teach for absolutely free. Again great for resume/technical experience

>poor financial choice

See above, save most income plus things like Health Insurance/GI bill among other things


>same as flipping burgers
Now this one shocks me, I still hold more respect for a damn soldier than I do a fry cook, it's hard and potentially fatal work

Yeah of course. As someone who is going off to OCS soon I was just curious why all the hate

You're obviously too emotionally invested in this to think logically about it.

The best way to get an unbiased view is to do some research with the goal of proving your own opinion wrong.

USA Special Forces Major here.

If you're going officer the pay isn't all that bad. I grossed over 127,000 this year and will only pay federal taxes (the state I claim doesn't tax military residents) on that (roughly 8-10k; deployed for five months).

I was able to get both my undergraduate and graduate degrees paid for by the army.

I was also to purchase two homes that I'm currently renting out using a VA loan without a down payment.

I don't pay for medical/dental and there are literally military discounts for just about anything you could want.

I will be able to retire with a pension of 50% base pay 4500 or so at 43 assuming I'm promoted to LTC in a few years.

I'm sure there are people on here in a better financial situation than I am but I'd bet I'm doing better than most.

> retire with a pension of 50% base pay 4500

I'd be very wary of depending on this for many decades. It is possible for pension funds to go bankrupt, for political tides to turn against veterans, etc.

Having said that, you sound pretty solid. I guess you're around 30 right now? If you can save 60% of your paycheck, which isn't hard but not super hard at 127k gross (I'm doing this on 120k, living in TX which has no income tax on anybody), there's a good chance you could retire at 43 even without the pension.

This would be my target if I were you -- to treat the pension basically as luxury money that lets your investments grow and weather market shocks.

I'm not banking on the pension, with all of the cuts LTC isn't as easy to make as it was 5 years ago. I'd be nice, but at least I've already got a lock on a reserve retirement if I left today (six years enlisted in the Guard prior to commissioning). That would start at 59 1/2 and I'd get roughly 27k a year assuming the USG holds up their end of the deal.

I just turned 36. I put away 50k this year plus whatever equity has accrued in the rentals and have been aggressively saving for the past few. I live in the National Capitol Region though so paying 2200 a month in rent (still under BAH about 400). I could certainly save more but I'm on target to meet my goals.

I think the military is fine if you want something different, have few other options, or want to get very specific type of training.

Other than that, it is best to avoid the military.

OP here, always been fascinated by the military so I fit into the "something different" category

Military to men is what prostitution is to women.

>not doing the opposite of Veeky Forums
it's like you don't want to make money

I'm just going off my 4 years in the Marines over 20 years ago.

officer route takes up 8 years of your life. Yeah the pay is good if you get promoted but at that point you're career military. Which means you're never going to get rich.

food and housing are technically taken out of your pay- when you realize you're at work 24/7 you'll see pay is way less than minimum wage.

GI Bill is nice. A lot of vets don't use it though. If you just want to pay for college get the shortest contract you can and get the fuck out.

essentially none of the military credentials, education and certificates translate to private industry. If you go officer and get a degree that will help but again you're spending 8 years in the military to get a 4 year degree.

employers are happy to have vets on the payroll, and they do tend to make good middle and lower management. But if they were qualified (intelligent and independent) enough to really manage things without supervision in the corporate world they wouldn't have gone military.

Service helps a lot with getting government jobs, but that's a career very similar to the military as far as culture and prospects go.

usually vets aren't the brightest hammers in the bag. Those of us that ace the asvab don't stay in the military long, we've got better prospects in the private sector. Most use it like I did, to pay for college and nothing else.

Tricare and the VA hospitals are a fucking joke, most vets know it.

My OSO has me planning for a 5 year contract as an officer. The marines promote 2nd LT to 1st automatically after 2 years, and after another 2 it's a promotion to Captain, that's enough pay even at 1st LT to give me a good amount to save and invest.

This is information given to me directly from my OSO (official with the marines that recruits into the officer program), I'm confident.

Here's another question, assuming I will be serving, how would I manage my finances if I happened to go overseas?

If I were a woman I'd be whoring myself out all the time. $500 an hour for being a below average slut is far better than military pay

>This is information given to me directly from my OSO (official with the marines that recruits into the officer program), I'm confident.
I didn't go the ossifer route but I can tell you from experience not to trust a recruiter.

there are automatic promotions but if you fuck up there's punitive demotions too. Best of luck though. They tried to rope me into OCS but I didn't want the time commitment. I would've been a terrible officer, I was such a dumbass at 18.

also should add-
I didn't go into the corps with a degree, so the 8 years active commitment included classroom time getting a degree. I think it was 4 years reserve after, so a total of 12 years. 4 of which would be spent in college and 4 years as a reservist.

Enrolling in four days. Tbh I need it for the credit to get into university