Warrant would be W. O2E is a 1st Lieutenant. The E is for being former enlisted. I get a little boosta for having been enlisted for four or more years.
Hmm… that makes California better, I was called up during Desert Storm, but actually served in Texas (Replacing an instructer at Ft. Sam who wanted a combat ribbon) and when I applied for a a job with the State they game me full credit. I think that’s something they should work on, to me if you served you served it’s not the fault of the soldier on whethe he’s in a combat zone or not.
By the way what the hell is an O2E? I’m assuming you’re not a 1st Lt.
I think most states have better rules about that, as well as the federal government.
Your question was answered above. The “E” part is for pay purposes only, it neither adds or subtracts anything from the rank.
I know about the VA mortgage thing. My credit has to be sterling, they can be a pain to qualify for in other ways, and so forth. A lot of it depends on where we (and the economy) are when we’re ready to buy a house, though.
It does, and that’s why I qualified it. In Texas, I didn’t get that consideration; in fact, it seemed to hurt me a little.
Robin
No he is not. MrAru is because he put in 20 years. He gets half base pay or essentially enough to cover our mortgage… a whopping $1200US.
If he lives from 40 to 70, 30 years will be all of $432,000US. If he had been working 20 years as a construction plumber [his job for 3 months between high school/rod and gun club and leaving for boot] he would have been making significantly more for those 20 years, and probably making more than the $34kUS he is making now. He was getting $12 / hour back in 1983. He took a serious pay cut to go into the navy. He is just now making a smidge over $13 / hour.
You have to put in 20 years to get the retirement pay. He may have qualified for the tuition plan, IIRC you put in essentially 4 or 5k$ and end up with a grand total of 35K$
As disparaging as I may sound, I still believe that 90% of the youth of both [all however many sexes there are, I am facetiously considering gays and trans in the count=)] would best benefit from universal service. You get 3 hots and a cot for 2 years, you get out of whatever ghetto/midwestern farm/californicator funky commune you whine about being disadvantaged because you come from there and see a different lifestyle, get an education in some trade be it clerical work of police work, get a chance to take college classes and save up for more education once you are out, and if you are of a mind to, you can have them automatically deduct money into savings bonds or savings account to give you a nest egg a few years down the road when you get out.
I just wanted to say that this cracked me up.
- Bryan Ekers, Canadian Forces Reserve since 1989. Underpaid for most of it.
The only ones whining from here are kids that want to head to the coast, or our politicians looking for pork. Try not to lump us together with the others you’ve mentioned.
Yep, the soldiers make nothing, and the security people make big bucks.
The OP said his friend might go back “as a contractor.” That doesn’t really narrow it down, and the money might not be great.
But the money IS great if you are a civilian working security. Iraq is a hot zone and the company that employs my brother is paying $750 per day for security personnel (Israel is not considered as hot, and pays only about $550 per day). That comes out to almost $20,000 per month, not counting bonuses. The company my brother works for takes only highly experienced former special ops and SWAT guys, and puts them through rigorous testing and drills before accepting them. My brother is a former Ranger and Green Beret, and when he “tried out” only 1 out of every 10 guys qualified.
And they get paid that much regardless of what they are doing- whether it’s site security (sitting around the compound making sure nothing bad happens to it) or transporting a principal, the money is the same.
I don’t begrudge them a penny. As my brother put it, there isn’t exactly a huge market for his particular skill set, but right now there is a huge demand in certain places for executive protection, counter-intel, etc. He will get paid more in one month than he would for an entire year of active duty, and he feels it is worth the risk. He will probably work for 3 months, come home for a couple, then go back again for another 3-6 months. Then he’ll buy a house or something.
He leaves in a few days or weeks, we’re not sure.
Can I just say… Bollocks to you, mate… :wally
How about those of us “youth” who studied and gained a degree while working full time at a shite night job, (paying taxes all the way), get decent jobs and settle down with families by the age of 24? why the hell would we want compulsary military service for? what a waste of time…
Yeah, and who wants to pay taxes either. :rolleyes:
I’m not for mandatory national service right now, but I do sit on my local Selective Service Board. I do so because I believe in military readiness. In a large-scale conflict, there will be an obligation to serve by many people.
Societal obligations aren’t always pleasant, nd they certainly don’t count on what you necessarily want, NikolaiV.
Judging from the pay rates, you are heavily penalized for not being promoted. If you factor in inflation, someone not being promoted is taking a paycut almost every year.
Last time I checked, 18 year old`s got the vote in my country, so we have some say in our own future…
And societial obligations? The obligation to lay down ones life for what exactly… I`m actually in training to join the territorial army here in NZ, but only because as an engineer, i feel that the work that our defence forces do is worth suporting, and I feel it would be rewarding to help in our peace keeping and emergency relief efforts overseas (as opposed to money driven wars of conquest 
And believe me I`m certainly not doing it for the money, as it sucks rather badly.
I do love the way that the older generation, having dropped teh world into its current state trot out the same old answers to problems… “Bloody young people - They need some time in the army to sort `em out etc…”
I’m sure you know the answer to that, given the incredibly brave and honorable history of New Zealand’s armed forces, especially during WWII.
I have read and reread this post and it does not make sense to me, please clarify. If you don’t get promoted you get a pay increase if you hit the next step, usually in two years. If there is no step increase for that rank it is because you are not expected to be in that rank for that many years. For instance there is no pay increase for E1 at two years. Thats because there is an automatic promotion to E2 before you can reach two years. The only way you would be an E1 with more than 2 years is if you got busted. I don’t have the information readily available but each rank as a maximum number of years that you can remain in the rank. You cannot retire as an E4. They will not let you reenlist that many times. It used to be the lowest rank you could retire reach retirement with (barring any demotions during the career) was E6. It may be different now, I have not dealt with the active duty side of it for a while. It is completely different in the National Guard, I have seen plenty of people retiring at E4.
The pay chart you show has the step increases. There is also a raise every year for cost of living, if authorized by Congress. There have been years where there was no increase but I don’t remember the last one. There will be a 3.5% across the board raise for all ranks starting 1 Jan 05. It’s not making anyone rich but it stays ahead of inflation even if you didn’t get promoted.
And those whiny kids are just the target=) FWIW, my mothers family is from Iowa and I have some seriously whinging cousins. One in particular, a strapping young lass who could probably whip most guys in a fair fight with one hand tied behind her back was so offended when I suggested that she consider going intot he army as a military cop and take advantage of the 15000 US signing bonus, but she was happy to whinge about nothing to do in town, and the only jobs available were at a local walmart/target [cant remember which one it was] Heck - she would have gotten out of Grinnell, made 15K and had a job with income for the next several years and not had to worry about trying to scrounge up some sort of tuition money to get some education with. So she stayed home, whinged for 2 more years about her situation, got pregnant by and forced marriage to some schlub who sits home drinking and they both whinge about working at walmart/target.
Well, lets see. Are you whinging about being stuck working at McDonalds? Are you sucking on a crack pipe or smoking marijuana because you have nothing better to do?
If you did what I suggested, you would have made major inroads on getting either a degree or getting the money to get your degree [I think mrAru in the last 4 years of his enlistment got something on the order of 25 college credits, plus whatever they figured out his actual military training classes were the equivalent to, for another 5 or 7 credits] I know several other guys who got degrees in programming, one took some form of nursing and became in independant duty corpsman which in civillian life makes him a physicians assistant, or a serious amount of training towards a medical degree. There are radiology techs who go directly into civillian jobs, same with pharmacy techs and lab techs. SeaBees can transfer straight over to heavy equipment handling - construction or materials handling. Flight crew/avionics techs go right into civillian positions, and on and on.
Why not get a decent paying job that has full benefits that you cant get fired from [unless you seriously screw up] and gives you real life work experience in your field, or the classes are entirely different from your field [most companies that will reimburse you for education sort of require that the classes have something to do with improving your job performance] and have the added benefit of 30 days a year vacation in exchange for following orders and wearing a uniform…or were you so thrilled to wear a uniform, take orders, have minimal benefits [if any] and still have to pay for credits? Not to mention despite being in the military, the odds of being in combat are [depending on your MOS] rather slim overall…though MrAru has been in pretty much every action since 1983 and the only injury he managed to get was a broken toe from getting a hammer dropped on it.
Im off to a meeting but I want to chime in here really quick and Ill be back later to add more detail.
I started out as an E-1 at 18 years old and am now an O-1E at 28. Ive been married, had kids, divorced and am now a single dad. Ive been to all the shitholes of the middle east and done a shitty tour in Korea. I think Im qualified to make educated comments.
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To the people who say that an E-1 can’t take care of a family on his salary I say this. Just because you marry a person in the military does NOT relieve the spouse, typically wife, from working themselves. Its no different than any civilian couple who need 2 incomes to get by. Spouses should work unless they are willing to live off the 20K a year. They shouldn’t have 2 kids if they can’t afford them.
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The reason that the lower pay grades get a low salary is somewhat justified. 80% of the people who enlist are just out of high school. No skills. No college. The military has to train these people, which costs a shitload, to do these jobs. Sure the jobs may be hard (SP or chrew chief) and they may make more on the outside doing the same thing, but you were also PAID while the gov PAID to train you. If they wanted to pay someone 40K a year to turn a wrench on an F-16 they would just hire civilians to do the work then they wouldnt have to pay to train them, insure them, retirement etc…
Other benifits that people seem to forget.
30days paid time off a year.
Virtually unlimited, non billable time off when sick.
TONS of paid holidays off every year.
Full medical and dental for you, full med for family and reasonably priced dental for family.
FREE training that would cost a fortune in the civ sector.
Gov housing or housing subsidy as well as food.
Job security.
Its VERY VERY hard to get “fired” from the military.
Housing and pay increases as time in increases. Just like civilian sector.
Ill be back to add more later, but I get tired of listening to how underpaid we are when we knew what we were going to make before we signed on the line. I also hate when people bitch about the pay and then leave out extra bennies as though they dont exist or aren’t worth anything.
Stinkpalm said> comments interspersed
Other benifits that people seem to forget.
>30days paid time off a year.
mentioned that one. However, managing to take it can be problematic depending on you particular duty station. mrAru spent more time selling it back than able to take it.
>Virtually unlimited, non billable time off when sick.
Again, depends on your duty station. mrAru broke a foot bone, so they made him sit behind a desk and do walking watches in a barracks at NOB/Norfolk since he couldnt go up and down the ladder. A civillian would have taken off the time and been able to sit at home, he was at that desk 5 days[including the saturday and sunday] after breaking the bone. Since he didnt get to have real time off, and had to walk on it, they had to rebreak it later. That time he got time off. He had all of 3 days off after his hernia repair. He has shipped out on the sub after 3 days in hospital with inhaled oil induced pneumonia. He has had to go back to drills in fire control dressout within 6 hours of being rendered unconscious from heat stroke.
>TONS of paid holidays off every year.
Not in the Navy. You have duty on that day, you are there for 24 hours, holiday or not. He stood duty every 3 days for 24 hours, having to put in a full work day the day after his duty day. Some times in stress situations he and the crew did port and starboard [12 hours on, 12 hours off for weeks at a time, NO days off.] The longest duty rotation he ever had was a 5 day rotation. When you are at sea there are no days off, when you pull into a foreign port for resupply you might get to have a few hours off if they dont have you standing a watch. Did I mention they keep an 18 hour day on a sub, in port or out? I shift on, one shift off but working and 1 shift for yourself?
>Full medical and dental for you, full med for family and reasonably priced dental for family.
Yippee. Took me 7 years to get them to recognize my diabetes and put me into a control program. They never in 10 years managed to put a crowbar in the wallet to send me out to do a full thyroid panel to diagnose this falling-out hair, drastic weight gain, roving dry alligator skin patches, low body temperature, shredding fingernails, dry eye problem that is all in my head, and the weight gain is from me sitting on my ass eating candy all the time… Oh, and Dr Death prescribed penicillian for me despite the screaming hot pink med folder. I love going in with a temp of 103+ and a history of kidney infections and kidney failure and being told that they wont culture me because I dont have bladder infection symptoms. I love being taken to an ER in an ambulance because I am now at 105 8 hours later, vomiting uncontrolably and in enough pain I can’t stand up, or sit down and I am about 24 hours from a cyst exploding. I love being told that all navy wives are going to the clinic because our husbands are out to sea and we are needing attention. Don’t mention how it took me almost a year to arrange to get a GYN exam because I wasnt active duty [active duty get first crack at the appointments, which they should] and we simply did not have the money to go offbase for one. SOmetimes you simply cant afford a 20% copay if it includes a pap smear, mammogram and other tests.
>FREE training that would cost a fortune in the civ sector.
I mentioned that. You forgot to mention that continuing ed courses are free, and many many service members get degrees in all sorts of spiffy things while still in, and you can save money with the government adding funds for more education once you get done with your enlistment.
>Gov housing or housing subsidy as well as food.
Well, BEQ/VHA for connecticut didn’t even cover our mortgage. Now you also have to pay rent to live in military housing, though it oddly enough costs exactly what BEQ/VHA for the area is…but you still have to pay for electricity, telephone, cable and internet. Comrats [commuted rations] are barely enough to feed one person.
>Job security./Its VERY VERY hard to get “fired” from the military.
mentioned that. Granted, you can screw up mightily, and some people are not cut out to take orders or are simply dumber than a box of rocks [like the idiots who get nailed for DUI and turn around and get another one almost immediately, stuff like that]
>Housing and pay increases as time in increases. Just like civilian sector.
Right, but when you start out well under the income level of a civillian, 3% of piss poor pay is still piss poor pay. [or whatever the various raises end up being, the % varies over the year.]
You must be either army or air force.
I wasn’t in the military so I was looking at it wrong. For instance, the E7 from under 2 to over 6 barely moves. Sorry, didn’t know you were automatically promoted in the military based on how long you served.
Dick Cheney avoided the draft. According to him, he had “other priorities.” He got what he wanted. GWB is one of many who chose the National Guard in lieu of active service. Most of them got what they wanted. In my experience, it is nearly always a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight.