Today I Learned

I just had a MRI on the VA's dime and if I would have gotten it with my insurance it would have cost me 2400 bucks. The VA paid a civilian hospital 98 dollars for the procedure. I paid nothing.

First class? HAH!

Granted, my anecdote is more than 20 years old, but a simple blood test almost put me out because the intern taking my blood had to try 5 times, in two veins, just to get the few ml she needed, after exploding the first vein

My husband and I, who are both Enlisted, have been saying for years that the military is proof that a form of socialism CAN work in the US. It's not "true" socialism because we still have an owning class, but ffs, it's a goddamned start. And its not just Active Duty who gets taken care of. Its also dependents, veterans (to an extent), and retirees. So there is the proof that the model is scalable.

At this point, I honestly believe that the biggest reason reason the government won't let the US have free or even affordable Healthcare isn't solely because of profits. It's because they won't be able to dangle free healthcare over the heads of poor teens to get them to Enlist. Same thing with the pension for re-enlistments.

I feel like those two items are purposefully withheld from the public to keep the military stacked.

And all you have to do is kill whoever they tell you to.

especially if you have 800bn funding it every year. half goes to contracters(which includes the stuff you mention) plus giving welfare to other countries instead of citizens.

To add to this, something I like to point out to people, but (for the US) only ~60% of military personnel are ever deployed. Of those 60% only 10-20% will ever see combat. To top that off ~25% of the military are actually civilian service members, people who work for the military but are not soldiers.

So in summary, for each soldier that sees combat there are:

• ~6 deployed soldiers who will never see combat.
• ~11 non-deployed soldiers who never will be.
• ~6 civilian military staff who will probably never need to move for work.

Of these 24 people, all have access to the commissary, retirement and pension, top tier insurance, paid child care, up to 26 days of paid time off with 13 sick days and 11 fed holidays. The only things the military civilians don't get are the VA, loan programs, and special protections.

So unless you're a complete block head with no skills or talent your odds of joining the military and basically getting socialism with no risks is pretty high. Remember this the next time someone gets mouthy about respecting "the troops" or "serving their country," odds are they didn't do shit.

I used to work with a whole group of guys who their whole military career (20 years) was running a wastewater treatment plant on an Air Force base in the US, that's it.

Base pay may be the same, but there are several incentive pays available for various duties. Flight pay, sea pay, jump pay, hazardous duty pay, etc.

Housing is assigned by rank, is available to anyone currently in contract

Not only that, but government owned housing is assigned not based on pay, rank, or whatever, but size of household. So an E-7 with no kids gets a 2 bedroom and an E-3 with three kids gets a four bedroom (depending on age/gender of the kids). So according to need.

The U.S. Military currently has a lot of problems with housing, feeding, and providing healthcare for service members. Check out USAG's hawaii barracks for example. There's a large number of lawsuits against the living conditions of family-housing. Dining Facilities that are intended and required to feed service members simply don't.

Until recently Service Members couldn't do anything if there was medical malpractice against them (and there was a LOT). And the act allowing medical malpractice suits was not retroactive, meaning everybody who served before 2020 was simply fucked.

Commissaries are (usually) genuinely good though. No complaints.

Understand that the government provided living conditions are not as good as you may be imagining.

Anyways here's my personal anecdotes to bitch about: Goodfellow AFB many years ago. Sewage was leaking into the barracks' (already shitty) Concho water pipes making it unsafe to drink and bathe. Lasted weeks. The water pipe above my room in particular was dripping onto our fridge and smelled like shit. I made a dumb fuckin gummy-bear funnel that diverted the leak into our sink because every single god damn person I asked to fix this problem said it wasn't their issue.

and here's the barracks room I was issued at my first duty station (that's all mold):

The entire way the military works is functional communism. Housing is assigned by rank,

Uhh - that would be a 'bourgeois right', going Marx's 'Critique of the Gotha Programme'. Very much the opposite intended outcome.

Housing is assigned by rank

Pay is rated by rank

Is there really a rank in communism? Who decides the details of a rank?

Because benefits people at the cost of corporations.

At least with DeCA there is a stone wall of needing to not die during service to access it. So it doesn't threaten corporations as much.

The largest social program in human history is the US military.

But there are many in American soil that are significantly cheaper than Walmart and similar. Of course if a commissary is placed in a base in Okinawa, in the middle of the ocean on the other part of the globe, then stuff is much more expensive

It's way more than minimum wage, which is what many make, and they also get great healthcare and a housing allowance, both of which most people making way less than E5s do not get.

More expensive than WinCo as well. Interesting.