Food insecurity stipend coming to aid troops
We talked about what “food insecurity” means a while back, and it became the latest political ploy for Congress to “help” out the enlisted troops. If you don’t recall, food insecurity doesn’t mean you didn’t have food to eat. It means you didn’t get to eat what you want, when you wanted it. I was food insecure all through most of my childhood and for that matter during basic training! I was deprived of McDonalds and that’s not right. Thankfully, our “leaders” have come to the rescue.
Instead of just raising pay for enlisted troops, they’re instituting a new allowance that people have to apply for. I’m sure the services won’t track this and O-3s and O-4s won’t be asked why all their <E-3 troops need the military equivalent of food stamps. There won’t be all kinds of headaches for troops applying for the program and not receiving it in time or being told they need to verify their eligibility.
The $400 monthly allowance is in addition to a housing allowance and the basic allowance for subsistance (which is supposed to be the allowance for food for Christ’s sake). It would apply to any troops that are living under the federal poverty line, which for a family of three is about $30,000 this year. For a family of four, it’s about $36,000. An E-1 with less than 4 months service is making just over $20k/yr in base wages. By the time you hit E-3 a few months down the road you’re still only at $26k/yr.
It’s now up to the DoD to decide what qualifies towards calculating how poor our troops are. If that E-3 is getting $1,500/mo BAH and $400/mo BAS, their annual real earnings would be almost $49k/yr. Hardly below that poverty line.
Jeff LPH 3 sends in the Military Times article with the full story.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Big Pentagon, WTF?
The richest country on earth calls $20k/yr “poverty”.
Battle Buddies
Put pairs of families together. The spouses can then team up to handle household while the soldiers do soldier.
Yes, gets weird in some ways. Don’t marry / family under E-5 and is better.
Teamwork is a thing.
No, last night, it was made clear on the news that the poverty line is now $75,000. ISUN.
How can I as a vet get in on this?
Once a month trip to the Bangor commissary would be nice.
I should call Susan Collins office.
Make a stink…
https://www.legion.org/veteransbenefits/254721/veterans-you-may-be-eligible-commissary-benefits
“…can use commissaries, exchanges, and Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) retail facilities, in-person and online.
who is eligible on Jan. 1, 2020?
https://blogs.va.gov/VAntage/67974/commissary-military-service-exchange-mwr-access-extended-veterans-beginning-january/
This is what the Commissary says:
https://www.commissaries.com/customer-service/faqs-listing?field_faq_categories_target_id%5B0%5D=37#:~:text=Am%20I%20eligible%20to%20shop,and%20their%20authorized%20family%20members.
So wife demands Applebee’s three times a week and store bought coffee every day?
kh50bBQIdUU
If it is for food they should give them commissary vouchers instead, unless there is no commissary within an hour or so of place of duty.
I agree.
Some soldiers w/ big families do struggle. Then again, I have seen soldiers with families eat, as pointed out above, three-four times a week. Additionally, as pointed out as well, some soldiers and families eat for taste. And others will milk the system for everything its got.
I guess one thing to keep in mind is we are looking at this through the rear view mirror. Point being, we have seen the “do’s and don’ts” first hand and have adjusted.
Another observation: that 1500 BAH ain’t what it used to be for a married soldier. If its to low to live on the economy, then they can live in subpar base housing.
When Hack Stone gets done with his gig selling Red Hat Software door to door in the National Capital Region for a proud but humble woman owned business that sells software to the federal government formerly located in Bethesda Maryland later today, he will post his “food insecurity” sea story. Swear on Elaine Ricci’s life that it is all true.
Ah but will Hack Stone be First today thus having the floor
to showcase his sea story.
Hack Stone’s Firsthand Experience With Food Insecurity
Some time on Parris Island during the summer of 1981. Probably the hungriest Hack Stone was ever in his life. Loaded up that tin tray with all of the food that Hack could get away with. Get to the table to sit down and eat, and for some reason beyond any common sense that may have been issued to this Recruit, Hack did not set his tray in the proper area of the table, but placed it with more than 50% of the tray contents over the edge of the table. Yep, much like Daniel Bernath, Hack Stone learned the laws of gravity the hard way. In slow motion Hack Stone saw all of his calorie intake dropped to the floor. Shit!!!
(End of Part I)
Hack Stone’s Firsthand Experience With Food Insecurity Part II
Got to clean this up before Sergeant Jones finds out. Hack Stone is hauling ass all around the chow hall getting a bucket and mop to clean up this mess before it comes time to “pay the bill”. Hack accomplished the mission, but still did not get to eat. The Marine Recruit working the serving line said “Why don’t you tell your Drill Instructor? Maybe he’ll let you go through the chow line again.” No thanks, Hack is not that hungry.
Dwight Eisenhower had a sign put in all chow halls.
“take all you want but eat all you take”
Hack should have eaten it off the floor right there.
Ike would have been proud.
“…all of his calorie intake dropped to the floor.”
What’s yer point? You dropped food on the floor? So? It’s military chow–tastes the same on or off the floor.
Hungry?
One time in RVN, and this is no shit, we were out in the boonies and the army was gracious enough to fly in a ice hot dinner. The line moved much faster than usual and soon I wasw in smelling distance, 10 feet or so, of the mermite can containing the entree. I say smelling distance because it was obvious at that distance (or farther) that our entree, allegedly some sort of beef, had been dead and unrefrigerated for some time before being cooked. Lacking the good sense that God gave a buzzard I proceeded to chow down while others watched, gagging. And upwind. Then I went back for seconds (there was plenty left).
That’s what happens when you are raised on anchovies, sardines, hot peppers, and dried, smoked salted herring.
Remember our first hot chow at the port during Desert Shield. They were supposed to bring trucks with hot chow for us at 17:00. Everyone started lining up at 16:30’ish. 17:00 no truck, no chow. 17:30 no truck, no chow. 18:00 no truck, no chow. Truck finally shows up about 19:15. Ribs for dinner. No idea what type of ribs they were supposed to be, probably camel ribs. 98% fat slathered in some type of sauce. 30 years later still picking strands of that meat from Hack’s mouth.
I am a glutton. I will eat massive quantities of almost everything. but even I have limits; NO mess hall “luncheon meat” (I settle for mustard sandwiches) and NO mess hall fried liver (always very, very, rare; and I won’t eat the onions, either.).
Imma suffering from food insecurity right now. Imma wanting grilled crab cakes with some cheesy grits infused with shrimp and bacon. Maybe if the Kongress Klown Kritters had to survive on what a Service Member made they would wake up to the fact that the pay is too low. Going by info out there, a deadbeat slurping from the public trough is doing more better than someone that has signed that blank check to protect and defend the Constitution of these United States.
Take the money that is being spent on woke BS and gender ID Surgery and put it toward pay raises. Kongress gave themselves a real nice raise during the scamdemic. jes’ sayin’.
Here comes another wave of inflation.
These people in Washington don’t have the faintest idea of how to run an economy.
Fiery yet mostly peaceful hyper inflationary death spiral.
Meh…weak turds.
But can it flush a steaming pile of Phil Monkress?
That is the question.
As a former plumber (thank you very much United States Air Force), it is my professional opinion that NOTHING can flush a steaming pile of Phil Monkress. If that amount of suction were generated, there’s a better than even chance that the pile of Monkress would be flushed followed by the rest of the universe. A reverse Big Bang, if you will. Unfortunately, the only two men smart enough to confirm or discount this possibility (Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking) are both dead, so we must act out of an abundance of caution.
Drop a 1/4 stick of dynamite in the pot to help with the facilitation of the flush.
Only way really to rid yourself of the problems associated with a steaming pile of Phil Monkress.
Wish we had had one of those when I was a kid—would have saved me a whuppin or two and some embarrassment.
Now that I have reached my full growth (and, hopefully, width), my appetite and I challenge that pissant machine to a death match. Just give me a couple of days.
Speaking of supply chain collapses…. Yet another Trump idea that Democrats fought tooth and nail that the other shoe is finally dropping in on.
https://www.ft.com/content/ee4704b9-debb-4526-b337-cc883be91994
I work at my local DSS doing intake/processing for food stamps and live close to a military base. I CONSTANTLY get enlisted personnel applying for food stamps and they get STUNNED when I tell them we count BAH and BAS. “But that’s not TAXABLE!!!”
“Yeah, but you still SPEND it, right?”
Ive done this job for 5 years and can count on one hand how many active duty personnel i’ve approved. It’s usually an E-3 that already has 3 kids.
One wonders why instead of doing sound financial planning, the family readiness officers/shape sergeants are just sending them to apply for food stamps instead.
Bingo. 90% of my Soldiers that had financial problems fixed it after we went over their spending habits and stopped 50% of their income being pissed away.
Don’t be talking smack about Devon Home Furniture, conveniently located outside the front gate of every military base in America.
Hey! That beer isn’t going to drink itself!
But I can buy a new car at 29.95% interest and rent some cool rims for only $99.95 a week?
The good old days.
Wait…there are places that rent RIMS? What in the everloving fuck is up with that?
Rent to own, but you know they never get paid off. It’s pretty common in any low income ‘hood.
Just like the “Car Title Pawn” joints where the Repo Man comes if you’re even one day late and the car goes straight to their lot for another sucker deal!
Just like the places that will do a suspension lift for “donk” rims and they’ll finance that along with an aftermarket vinyl roof, “Boom-boom stereo system,… During my days on Benning, there was a store in the Peachtree Mall that boasted about “no payments”, the Joes being suckered were just conned into filling out and signing an Allotment Form “instead of paying”.
When they come back and repossess those rims, the term “renting” is as close a description that you can get.
I grew up in an Army town and saw just how much got spent come payday weekend at bars and liquor stores alone as well as during my AD time when I saw “those Guys” in the barracks who were flat broke three days after payday. Maybe try to teach them to use coupons and buy off-brand while “sacrificing” eating out every other day?
Time to send back the 2022 Cobra SVT at 28% interest, the $5 coffees and the $300 drunks at the bar. When I was a TL or SL, I: 1) knew it was happening, and 2) stopped it through counseling or sending to other agencies for better counseling. It’s basic NCO business. Put down your phone and get to know your Soldiers. And don’t get the officers involved. And a decent pay raise would help…
^^THIS^^. Plus all the firearms and gucci gear the jr enlisted all “have” to have. Many will pay for meals off the ship instead of the free chow on board. It is not that they are paid too little, it is the poor spending habits that they refuse to change.
The $406.98 monthly could go pretty far at the commissary.
The dork who blows $150- 200 at the bar, but won’t buy $18.64 green vinyl overboots at clothing & sales to replace the ones he forgot and left somewhere in the field (no, that’s the govt’s responsibility) without a FLIPL, hours of his chain of command’s time and having his pay screwed up by Finance for 3 months, has f*cked-up juvenile priorities.
I concur, getting to know one’s personnel is part of being an NCO along with mentoring, say keeping some gullible Joe from “Taking a loan” on his TA-50 for some quick party money and having to sign a Statement of Charges after the next inspection along with “HAVING TO” have that cool-looking gear advertised by some store down range.
Give a Marine a crayon, and he will eat for a day.
Teach a Marine to make crayons, and he’ll eat for life.
No sympathy here. The military is not a charity. Everybody knows the pay & benefits before they take the oath. Birth control is cheap and readily available.
But the glittery single moms must be supported. 😉
Not to mention:
Like the one who told me she was dancing to feed her kids and the next thing I knew she was slapping the shit out of me with a pissed-off Bouncer coming my way for putting canned food on the stage!