I can write a book about lower level enlisted finances, but I'll just give you a paragraph or two. I've always been pretty good about numbers, so my financial life has been pretty problem free. However, in 1967, I went to work for my uncle on a two year contract. My first monthly check, before deductions, was $78.00. Uncle gives an automatic raise at two months to $87.00, before deductions. Sam (by now I'm getting a bit more familiar with him) sent me to school for a few months and I was lucky enough to be top graduate and got awarded a stripe and a pay raise to $131.00 a month, before deductions. Uncle Sam must have thought I was some smart fellow because he sent me back to school for another couple of months. Lo and behold, I was top graduate again and got another stripe and a raise to $214.00 a month, again, before deductions. Now, let me be clear about this. I got these raises and stripes, but none of my buddies got them because they were not the top graduates in their schools. Most of them, when I was making $214.00, before deductions, after six months on the job, were still making $87.00 a month. Now, if you were married, and somehow ended up in my predicament, you got a few bucks extra, don't remember how many, because I was not married at the time. When I got to the $214.00 level, I was on top of the world, because I was transferred to Fort Lee, Virginia which was close enough to go home on weekends, about 120 miles one way. I think I had the gas figured at about $3.00 each way if I really kept out of the gas pedal. The tolls through Richmond on I-95 added up to 85 cents each way. Do you realize that this is so little money today that computers don't have a "cents" key like a typewriter used to. I fixed the toll business by driving through downtown Richmond to avoid $1.70 in tolls each time I went home. I could go on, but you get the picture. We survived, but not because of any help from the U.S. Congress. Bill Murphy, U.S. Army Retired after two years service.
