Military families struggle with food insecurity during pandemic

Shouldn't be, shouldn't ever be, though I can remember as a married E-5 making just over food stamp levels.

I will say this is a shame, I couldn't bring myself to read this article because I am fairly sure what it is going to say. I know I am a young punk compared to some of the guys on here but I do remember pulling in my whooping 485 for the month. But at that time I was living in the barracks, no children, 3 hot's and a cot. I came from the regular rural area where there were kids who never owned a pair of shoes and did walk around in the snow or hot asphalt bare foot. Thing is I was making a lot of money with hustles in high school. So once I got the hang of life in the 82nd and I found them again and was able to boost my monthly to an average of around 2k a month even as a private. Another thing that has sickened me from that young age is I did have rich family. At the time I realized how rich they were, we visited them a couple of times my whole entire life and I could never figure out why we were family, we were poor but they were world wide and larger than life. I did pay attention at the dinner parties with the senators and congressmen, government contractors, and I learned very early that the true problem with mankind is greed. It runs all the way from the guy in the barracks bumming a nickel from you every time he meets you in the hallway to the guys swinging those multi billion dollar contracts. If you sit back, do your job, and expect that is going to save you and provide. Well you are sadly a victim of your circumstances. Without a doubt I believe a soldier of any kind should be paid enough to sustain any life they choose to pursue because he or she is putting their life up for the nation. But, I do remember hearing more times than I can count, "if the army wanted you to have a wife and children, they would have issued them to you" . The military is a young mans game, having a family and making a career of the military is not a hand and hand event. Truthfully the extra folks on the payroll are a huge burden to national security. So how do we have senior officers and enlisted without having men with families? How do we get money spread around to all service members instead of billionaire contractors and politicians who are making deals from their million's dollar yachts? Answer is we don't, we would wreck the very system we all on this platform have taken an oath to protect. Historically the system was enhanced to help warriors who gave their all in the "great war". The military is not supposed to be a place to springboard into a family, build a career to live out the best years of your life to build a retirement. The true answer to this is keep your junk in your pants and be responsible, think about what you are doing, where you are going in life, make a plan, and if that is "being all you can be" great, then live that, the significant others come along in abundance, pick the one that has something going on and isn't just the love of your life when you have "beer googles" on at "Ricks Lounge". That person is on his or her game and boost you instead of getting prego every time you pass them in the hallway they build your hustle and push you forward to be the bad ass senior enlisted/officer playing the best politics' game ever. If you find you have made the wrong decisions early well make a plan to get out, become a tradesman, get tough and provide for your family. Everyone will tell you to "use your brain and not your back", so you will only create debt while you go to school distracted with a family and still graduate with huge debt and low pay, staying in that poverty level for decades. Or, you can learn to "bend at the waste" and get tough hands, get sharp in the brain and make your way. There is no one that makes over 100k that doesn't already come from money that doesn't work 80 to 100 hours a week and has learned side hustles. My heart goes out to those in need, I am currently helping about 6 people now that can't get out of their own way. I want to believe what I have wrote pisses some people off, and motivates a few others. There is no magic to succeeding in a capitalists system, it is the basic same as "stay alert stay alive", no were in our constitution does it say, sit back and put all of your faith in "Uncle Sam" to provide for you with a spending bill. You were given the gift of life to see, experience and make the most of the breath you breathe. Not to sit around and live in squallier to wait for hand outs. The military is not a welfare system for young couples to live like executives. Their are to many men and women who have PTSD, real problems like missing limbs, that deserve our effort and our adoration, protecting welfare kids produced by goofballs that can't keep their dick in their pants is not the world's, country's responsibility. Life sucks if you let it.