Don’t Thank Me. Just House Me.
We’re used to sleeping on the ground, but that shouldn’t be where our kids sleep.
This week’s post is by contributor Timothy Wood.
I’ve been in and around the military almost continuously since before I was even born. I’ve been assured by my chain of command that I can identify myself as a service member, so long as no reasonable person could get the idea that I was acting as the Department of Defense’s spokesperson, or issuing official statements. I don’t speak for anyone, but I think I speak to the shared concerns of many. For the uninitiated, a bit of orientation is in order.
The SMA is the Sergeant Major of the Army. It’s the highest possible rank for an enlisted person. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve rather liked SMA Michael A. Grinston. If you don’t recognize the name, just know that he’s the top dog. Grinston’s done some fun stuff since he took the spot in 2019, like hosting online town halls where ordinary Joes can ask questions. He got replaced a few days ago, but will stay on until August 2023. These things happen. But regardless of who’s at the top, it’s not entirely clear that they’ll be able to change an organizational culture in the military. We’re really good at flashy things, like remarkably lifelike recreations of scenes from Iron Man, but less good at the boring stuff, like having a roof over your head, which turns out to be pretty important. We’re giving teenagers weapon systems that cost more than they make in a lifetime. Maybe we need to make sure they have a place to sleep.
Grinston has a social media person, username SMA-PAO on Reddit, who can interact with us unwashed masses. That’s the Sergeant Major of the Army Public Affairs Officer. How to explain PAOs? Imagine that guy who takes pictures of all his meals to post on Instagram. Now make that a job title. We’ll gloss over the fact that Reddit has become an unofficial meeting ground for the armed forces, since we took away official military email access from half the Army, and discontinued AKO, the website that was supposed to link together all online resources for soldiers. This is all still a bit of a sore spot, and quickly becoming the go-to complaint about the many tone deaf decisions that fail to take average soldiers into consideration.
The SMA-PAO came out with a neat little guide on Reddit, titled Attacking Inflation and Building Financial Readiness. Now, this is kind of a big deal. Let me put this in a way that’s easily digestible to a forgettable character in a Tom Clancy novel. Badly managed personal finances can be a major security risk. It’s easy to be patriotic until you have to explain to your hungry kid why there’s no food in the fridge, and maybe somebody offers to drop you a bag of cash if you leave a door somewhere unlocked “by accident.” That’s why personal finances figure into security clearances, and why you can be disqualified for a clearance over matters like personal debts.
Granted, privates managing their money badly is a bona fide military tradition. For those of you who had barely unpacked at your first duty station before you immediately bought a brand new Dodge Charger at 17% interest, yes, I’m talking about you. That was a bad decision and you should feel bad, especially because we really shouldn’t be comedically embracing the whole schtick as a fun joke. I can’t emphasize this enough. The wrong person in the wrong financial spot can do a lot of damage, endanger our national interest, and put lives at risk.
Regarding the subject at hand, part of this helpful advice that was provided, on Reddit, for our dear troops — thank you for your service — includes how to apply for food stamps. How did we end up here? You work for the government, and your government is giving you tips on how to apply for government aid designed for people who can’t afford to eat. Never mind that we’re totally cool entrusting you with “boom stuff” in a combat zone, to potentially make split-second decisions that are literally a matter of life and death. This is more than just a bad look — something has gone seriously wrong.
A big chunk of the problem here is housing. The average price for a home in the US has jumped to over a cool half mil. The Army traditionally does things to account for this. We have on-base barracks for unmarried soldiers, and on-base homes for those with families. This all might be slightly complicated when government contractors plead guilty to fraud for falsifying reports and endangering the health and safety of military families living in their housing.
Did we remember to thank you for your service? Yes, I think we did that a few paragraphs up.
It’s fine. We have another option. It’s called BAH — basic allowance for housing. Pay is taxed, an “allowance” is not. So it’s a big chunk of tax-free money specifically for housing, and it’s scaled to your zip code to account for the local price of homes. Sounds great on paper, except you’ve probably guessed what comes next. Of course it doesn’t accurately scale with the local price of housing.
That’s a really important detail. The thing called your base pay, that is, the taxable wages you earn based on your rank and time-in-service, that’s service-wide and nation-wide. It doesn’t compensate for whether you live in Clarkesville, TN, where the average home price is $300 grand, or in Honolulu, where the average home price is around $900 large. The problem is that houses have gone up in price by something like 17% in one year. That’s not great if you’re depending on BAH to pay your mortgage.
Obviously housing isn’t the only issue. Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that the price of everything has gone up. But housing is an easy one to get your head around, because it’s an area where the Department of Defense is specifically supposed to assess the market value and provide service members with a measure of financial security. It’s worth emphasizing that this isn’t the only kind of security involved here. If you’re going to take a 19-year-old and stick them in a six million dollar tank filled with high explosives, you really want them to be focused on the task at hand, not worried about whether their application for food stamps will be approved.
If you’re in the “support our troops” camp, fuck yeah, let’s support them. If you’re in the “economic justice” camp, fuck yeah, let’s make sure people have four walls and a roof. If you’re in the “I like spreadsheets” camp… come over some time and we’ll debate the rules for Settlers of Catan. But when we’re done, we can look at the fact that the cost of housing doesn’t give a shit about when appropriation bills are passed. Maybe we can go nuts and talk about how the Defense Travel Management Office under the Department of Defense should perhaps not be the one that determines the allocation of the DoD budget for things like housing. The US spends over $700 billion a year in defense, set to increase to over $850 billion next year. The DoD has $1.64 trillion in budgetary resources. Don’t tell me we can’t get a roof over people’s heads. There’s no excuse.
See also: “To Win the World, Innovation is Our Most Powerful Weapon”
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