'How could it be that corporate weapons makers are in funding heaven and all too many members of our military in a homegrown version of funding hell?'
, a non-taxable stipend given to military families to help cover housing, is counted as part of military pay in determining the eligibility of families for food assistance. Because of that, all too many families who need such assistance are disqualified.The BAH issue is but one part of a larger picture of twenty-first-century military life with its torrent of expenses, many of which you can’t predict. I know because I’ve been a military spouse for 12 years.
And yet even for us, affording the basics has sometimes proved challenging. During the first few months after any move to a new duty station, a typical uprooting experience for military families, we’ve had to wield our credit cards to get food and other necessities like gas. Add to that take-out and restaurant meals, hotel rooms, and Ubers as we wait weeks for private contractors to arrive with our kitchen supplies, furniture, and the like.
Tag on the cost of hiring babysitters while we wait for affordable childcare centers in the new area to accept our two young children, and then the high cost of childcare when we finally get spots. In 2018, during one of those moves, I discovered that the military had even begun putting relocated families like ours at the back of wait lists for childcare fee assistance — “to give others a chance,” one Pentagon representative told me when I called to complain.
But don’t worry, even if your spouse isn’t nearby, there are still plenty of social opportunities for family members to get together with one another, including annual balls for which you’re expected to purchase pricey tickets. In the post-9/11 era, such events have become more common and are frequently seen as
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