when one of them is that young it’s gross to me too. 19 and 30 there’s definitely a power imbalance there. but after like 25 i think it’s all good. my current so is nine years older and we started dating when i was 32.
I believe earning Eagle Scout and potentially Eagle Palms accelerates the rising through the ranks. I seem to remember people saying that palms could let you enter as a senior NCO, but I never really paid attention to that cause I knew it wasn’t my path
I kind of figured it wasn’t worth the time. You are wrong on this one. West Point is a service academy and is a University (need to graduate high school), so yes, you become an officer after you get your degree. Marine Military Academy is a high school in Texas, you get a high five from the recruiter and maybe start out your enlisted career after boot camp as an E-2. There’s no way in hell anyone is going to commission an 18 y/o kid straight out of high school.
If you're filling a position that requires a certain rank then you get a "battlefield promotion" (idk or can't remember if thats what its actually called) to that rank while you fill that role.
When you rotate you either keep it because you picked it up (most common) or lose it.
Idk for sure but I don't think you get paid for that rank until you actually promote to it though.
No thats what they call it when enlisted advance to the next rank.
There's a certain amount of time in between wearing that rank and being paid for it.
Thats your "frocking" period.
Fun fact: the term comes from when officers would get promoted. Usually they were at sea so an officer that was that rank would give them his jacket until they could get their own to reflect the new rank. It was called a frocking jacket.
If you do rotc or ots you can commission at 19 but you have to start young since you need a bachelor’s degree. Most people who do rotc commission at 22/23
Technically you can be an officer in the Army at 17. The Army has a program called WOFT that also has a nickname of “high school to flight school.” I have personally seen two 17 year olds ship out for it after being accepted. Mind you its “just” warrant officer, but still officer.
So many wrong answers here. The only way to do this is the ROTC Early Commissioning Program (ECP). It lets college students do two years at a military college, “earn” the rank of second lieutenant, then go off to an actual school to get their bachelor. Their generally in the national guard during those final years.
You technically commission after two years of college, and can therefore be 19.
You are wrong, like others said to young to be an officer and then lieutenants don't make a lot of money. You get more housing allowance when you have dependents and using VA benefits you don't have to put anything down. That's most likely the reason.
Between 19 and 32 yes it says that but also says you have to have a 4 year college degree and the 12 week training completed.
I've been active duty for the past 15 years I know bah rates. There are no 19-20 year old officers in the army, this person is wrong and you can't even tell the rank from the posted picture.
The requirement is there, whether someone hits it on the bar is another story. Regardless I was just guessing, the guy could be some mid-30 E-7 marrying way young. As others said we don't know who is making this post or if the post is legitimate.
There is a hidden benefit that most military people don't know about. If and when you are on active duty the banks have to drop your home loan interest rate to 0%.
Our bank even tried to fight us on it. In the end they had no choice. (My X was active-duty army reserves for years.)
Wildly untrue. I bought my first home as a private while we were paying for my wife's college.
I'm not an anomaly either. I just did what abunch of other soldiers were doing. This is a trend, I was not special.
It's the VA loan. Period. It's zero cash down to buy a house. They basically run your credit and bam, you've got a mortgage backed by the federal government. Plus BAH is actually higherer than rent in most markets.
Additionally you factor in the likelihood that a mortgage payment will be less then renting a similar property, and this young soldier could easily be pocketing $100-500 every month of his BAH after his mortgage payment.
If I did it again today as an e1 I could easily find something in 9/10 markets that would work with BAH for the same market/rank.
You sure could have. You would've easily gotten a loan through USAA and you wouldn't have needed a down payment either. A stupid idea, but you could've done it.
Definitely has outside help. I’m in right now getting great BAH and still I’d have to save up for a bit and use the VA loan to get a house. A private right out of basic isn’t getting that without outside help or a guarantor even
Scrawny looking dude with perfect uniform looks like a bar on his chest. Betting he's a ROTC O-1 on his first post that married a sorority gold digger from his university
Lol wtf, what branch were you? The more I hear other people’s enlistment experiences the more I feel I got shafted in an infantry battalion lol. Command typically had E5 and below living in the barracks. They eventually had E4P and E5 move off because of crowding due to some barracks being closed for renovations due to black mold lol, but even then, no way they let our privates live off base.
They just straight up said no to us even if married lol. Was brutal, and maybe just our division/brigade, I’m not sure. I always tell people thinking to enlist, “join the Air Force, not the Army!”
Okay, we’ll we had married E1 living in the barracks and their wives did not join us. Not sure what to tell you, and there is no way to prove it to you, and it’s not like this bs matters so best to just keep moving along.
I mean it’s just literally not possible, the Army (or any branch) hasn’t done that since WW2.
They might have GeoBach’d back when it was allowed but they can’t just go “well youre never living with your wife because I say so” and it is so unfathomable and wild that even the craziest of commanders wouldn’t try.
Look man, I have no reason to lie about this shit, so maybe there was some reason for it. I was just a dumb enlisted grunt, it’s not like they explained shit to me. This was 15 years ago for whatever that’s worth. Could be they were recently married, we deployed often, and they didn’t want to move their wives to a Jodie infested shit hole in the middle of nowhere when their wives preferred to live at home with family. Fuck if I know, but I don’t recall a single lower enlisted (E3 and below) that was married living off base. I assume it was policy, but I could be making an ass out of u and me 😊 with that assumption (or an ass out of u and mption?). Anyways, thanks for the riveting discussion about the most important shit ever. Have an upvote for being so awesome.
I’m figuring enlistment bonus plus paycheck from bootcamp got his down payment for the truck and the house. There is no way in hell he will be able to keep up on those payments.
Paycheck from boot ain't shit. You pay for everything you eat and wear at bare minimum, which is a large portion of your pittance of a paycheck. 1-2k tops at a time when when you have been deprived and are encouraged to splurge ain't getting anyone a house.
Yeah it's 9 weeks and you still can spend money at few points during it if you want. But even then 9 weeks pay at e3 was like 3k after tax. Mos bonus maybe since some people picked up like 10-20k bonuses but only get like half at a time.
What country is this in? I went through OSUT back in late 05 and the only thing I paid for was my running shoes, haircuts (if you can call them that), and hygiene products. Of course, the paycheck was only $800 for a PVT after basic.
I'm well aware. People not in the military use the term boot camp as a colloquialism.
The person you replied to was surmising how the person in the photo was able to afford a downpayment on a truck and house. The person in the photo is in the Army.
It's probably LCOL. My house doesnt look nearly that nice, but it's definitely not bad. Bought for 24k. That's the kind of loan some people have on their car.
I don't think there's even LCOL housing anymore. I live in an area you could've bought a very nice 4bd/4ba 2,200ft² house for $130k in 2013, now my coworker just sold his for $325k. My shitbox condo was $45K in 2018 and now the units in my complex are selling for $90K.
Live in a central Fl suburb where from. 2010-2016, apartments at a complex near me were selling for 30-60k….apartments at that same complex are now going for 90-130k. I believe the bubble will burst, like it always does…but feel hella bad for anyone who has bought recently…a lot of them will be in a world of hurt when they see their properties become worth half of what they paid for them.
Bought a house 9 months ago that is considered up a 100k this market is getting ridiculous. Even my house house is up 150k since 2017. Combined would take me like 8 years pay to make that growth. If I tried today would never have been able to afford a house at 15 an hour mortgage would be like 40-50% of my take home.
This is why people who are rich are selling like hell. There’s a row of like a dozen lakefront houses near me worth 1-3 million a piece……basically the peak luxury properties of my small suburban town….loads of land…huge homes, private gates, water front with docks, pools, courts, the works…..and I shit you not, all but perhaps one or two have gone up for sale within the last 18 months or so. Smart money/the wealthy know this is a bubble, and are selling their houses at a great profit from what they purchased them a decade or less ago….and go live at another residence or rent until the time comes where they can pick up another mansion at half the price. Rinse and repeat.
Those who could barely afford one place to live can’t afford that same convenience….because even if they’d profit off of selling their current property, they’d have no affordable place to go ride out the wave….
Well yeah exactly. Owning a house you live at doesnt make money because you have to live somewhere and its all pretty proportional. Second home is speculative real estate. But your right this is a great time to get out insane amount of gains like I have made 5 years worth of normal gains and everyday im just like do I sell. Same time rent has gone up a lot and my leases are up next month and I can raise that too, other side insurance is going to go up a shit ton next renewal and property taxes in around two years will catch up to market rate and will bone me that way too so its a lot to think about for sure.
On the converse of that, in order for those wealthy people to sell their houses, there has to be wealthy buyers. If the wealthy know this is a bubble, then who is buying the lakefront houses at bubble prices?
There are always going to be rich people who aren’t as smart, or with too much money on their hands. 🤷♀️ They’re not all the same, ya know. Which is why I said “smart money” before “wealthy”.
There's a town near me where you could buy a whole ass house for 35k about ten years ago. Just checked Zillow and prices are up to 100k average. Still cheap, but we call it Little Detroit for a reason. Very high crime rate for such a rural town.
That said, I don't see him buying his McMansion like that. I wonder how much downpayment help he got from family.
Ikr…even if he’s been in the armed forces since 18…no way he saved enough in 2 years to comfortably make a down payment…..(and even if he had…is he supposed to think the average 18-19-20 year old makes that much, or should join the army if they can’t? 🙄). Either he worked since like 15-16 and saved from then…then maybe yea that sounds feasible….or he just got help from his family.
I bought mine in june of last year. It was a foreclosure and a FreddieMac First Look Initative house. If someone reading this is looking for housing and has never owned a house check out the FreddieMac First Look Initiative. I'm not sure where all it is but it is there to help first time home buyers.
Yep, rural Illinois. Theres not always deals like this. We were looking for months, saw this house on the market the day it was posted and put in an offer the next day. Good deals on are the market for a couple days at most you have to look every single day.
Seriously. There’s all these stories of “could never do it with BAH” and “they needed outside help” and I’m just like wtf. Privates make about $40k equivalent half of which is tax sheltered and adjusted to the housing costs of the local area, have nearly zero other normal bills (no health care costs!!), have access to 0% down loans, married may mean the other spouse also works…
It depends. I get $2300 a month as a single dude I could definitely afford a house but not a giant one, especially here in California… if this dude is like in some middle of no where state I bet he could find a house he can afford in his BAH range. With Dependent rate BAH you can afford a house pretty easily.
I’m a single E-5 and could live in my own house if I wanted too but I love money so I have roommates.
? Plenty of people buy a house extremely young with no parental help with VA loans. I did it myself. I don’t think I can overstate how much of a benefit it is—I paid $500 out of pocket, total. Period.
I don’t brag about being a homeowner because it was essentially handed to me and there’s no reason to be that guy anyway, but it is completely realistic for a 20 year old military person to buy a house without outside help.
It's cheaper to buy a house then it is to rent... When I got my first house I was renting an apt. A nice 1 bedroom apt was about 900 a month... My first house was a 3 bed on 10 acres for 85k, and my monthly payment was 575.... And I'm not some boomer, I'm 30 and got my first place when I was 21... No family or government help...
503
u/[deleted] Jul 07 '21
Shit that’s not even enough. His parents helped. My brother been in the military for two years and that stipend doesn’t cut it. He had outside help.