Who Deserves Pay Raises?
This is my commentary on some of the shrill right-wing responses to those few journalists who are questioning the need for military pay raises. I’m a Navy veteran (1957-1968). When I was commissioned ensign in 1957 and sent from Newport to NAS North Island, Coronado, California, the military was genuinely underpaid. If I recall correctly, I got a grand total of $3,200 in salary my first year in the Navy, from May through December, pooling together my OCSA (seaman apprentice) and ensign salaries, but because it was so paltry it was tax free and I didn’t need to file 1957 income tax. In most places where I was stationed, women officers had to live “ashore,” and to make life affordable you needed at least one roommate. BAQ was a whopping $65 a month in those days, although rentals in upscale Coronado started at about $175 a month. There was an enlisted women’s barracks but women officers were forced to rent outside the base since there were no bachelor officers’ quarters for women at the
