There are a couple of things going on. First, the stipend isn't that much (esp. because it's not a year round benefit). Even if I were getting the full payment it would only be 1500 a month.
Second, the issue of work, no, the active duty soldier, even the one who stays stateside, does more days on duty in the 36 months required to get the full benefit.
They also get a lot more support, and they tend to have a lot less to lose. They don't see a loss of pay from being deployed. They don't have to pay for storage of goods if they have to put things in a locker when they go (heck, at Bragg they just put a seal on the door, and you come back to the barracks you left).
On the one hand the time of the active duty soldier is greater, on the other the sacrifices on the RC soldier are. They also get this, in effect, for free. They don't have to be deployed. They enlist, and it's included. Break a leg and get discharged from basic, and they get the full-tretement. The reservist has to deploy, and deploy, and deploy again. If they don't get activated to three years of federal time, they don't get the same benefits. One works more on deployments than one does in garrison; even if the garrison duty is Korea. So the equivalence isn't quite there, even at the level of time in uniform.
Then there's the issue of ability to use. If I had a mortgage, or more rent to pay, or dependents... there is no way I could afford to take advantage of the bill.
The young person, who joined up between 18-21, leaves the service with a lot less of that, so the stipend (which is going to be about the same as their base pay at separation) is a lot easier to get by on.
And part of it is emotional. I keep hearing about how much the Reserves and the Guard mean, about how it's all one Army/Navy/Air Force, etc., but it's not. Not when it come to how the recompense gets handed out. Drop everything, and go, when they tell you, where they tell you (in 16 years in the guard, I spent almost six of them away from home, two weeks here, six weeks there, 18 months in one stint, 14 in another, it adds up), take pay cuts when they deploy you, but be refused Army Emergency Funds when the money doesn't come; because you aren't active.
I don't regret it, but there are times I feel a little bitter, and a bit used. I'd mind the sense of being used less, if it wasn't going on still. I've looked, the little hits (like not getting to use all of that 7,600 bucks, unless I can afford to go to a school which charges 10,000, or more, a year) aren't being mentioned.
No, I am told that I get, "60 percent of the hightest in-state tuition at a state school," as if I was ever going to be able to use it in a meaningful way (the choices for my degree are a Cal-State School, which means I'll not get the full-value of my 7,600, and have to cough up a couple of grand a year to fill the gap, or USC, which I can't afford, even if I wanted that much debt, I don't know that I could get the loans for the $80,000 it would cost) and there are photo-ops, with guys who opposed this beaming at the new students. Well that makes me cranky too.
no subject
Second, the issue of work, no, the active duty soldier, even the one who stays stateside, does more days on duty in the 36 months required to get the full benefit.
They also get a lot more support, and they tend to have a lot less to lose. They don't see a loss of pay from being deployed. They don't have to pay for storage of goods if they have to put things in a locker when they go (heck, at Bragg they just put a seal on the door, and you come back to the barracks you left).
On the one hand the time of the active duty soldier is greater, on the other the sacrifices on the RC soldier are. They also get this, in effect, for free. They don't have to be deployed. They enlist, and it's included. Break a leg and get discharged from basic, and they get the full-tretement. The reservist has to deploy, and deploy, and deploy again. If they don't get activated to three years of federal time, they don't get the same benefits. One works more on deployments than one does in garrison; even if the garrison duty is Korea. So the equivalence isn't quite there, even at the level of time in uniform.
Then there's the issue of ability to use. If I had a mortgage, or more rent to pay, or dependents... there is no way I could afford to take advantage of the bill.
The young person, who joined up between 18-21, leaves the service with a lot less of that, so the stipend (which is going to be about the same as their base pay at separation) is a lot easier to get by on.
And part of it is emotional. I keep hearing about how much the Reserves and the Guard mean, about how it's all one Army/Navy/Air Force, etc., but it's not. Not when it come to how the recompense gets handed out. Drop everything, and go, when they tell you, where they tell you (in 16 years in the guard, I spent almost six of them away from home, two weeks here, six weeks there, 18 months in one stint, 14 in another, it adds up), take pay cuts when they deploy you, but be refused Army Emergency Funds when the money doesn't come; because you aren't active.
I don't regret it, but there are times I feel a little bitter, and a bit used. I'd mind the sense of being used less, if it wasn't going on still. I've looked, the little hits (like not getting to use all of that 7,600 bucks, unless I can afford to go to a school which charges 10,000, or more, a year) aren't being mentioned.
No, I am told that I get, "60 percent of the hightest in-state tuition at a state school," as if I was ever going to be able to use it in a meaningful way (the choices for my degree are a Cal-State School, which means I'll not get the full-value of my 7,600, and have to cough up a couple of grand a year to fill the gap, or USC, which I can't afford, even if I wanted that much debt, I don't know that I could get the loans for the $80,000 it would cost) and there are photo-ops, with guys who opposed this beaming at the new students. Well that makes me cranky too.