"The money tree"

Ok I know this an already preached on subject but I really feel the need to jump on the band wagon.  So in a conversation the other day I was telling a family member how much I missed the money Josh and I made before we enlisted (mind you Josh was working in the Aircraft Industry and I was working for the Veterans Administration), to which my aunt told me "if you were looking to get rich you chose the wrong career".  To that I should have replied "you are not kidding"
What so many people don't understand is no one in the military wishes to get rich, because to us we are already rich just not in the monetary way, as a spouse I have the privilege of not just falling in love with my husband once but falling in love with my hero every single time he leaves, whether he is leaving for work, a TDY, or a deployment, see I understand what it is like to feel my heart break every time he leaves and then I get to experience the butterflies that I got the first time he called me or on our first date.  I may not have Donald Trumps money or Kim Kardashian's wardrobe but I do have the love of a man that is willing to sacrifice the first months of his babies life or his son's first soccer game so that Americans, even the Americans that feel he gets paid too much can continue to live their lives the only way they know how to live...free.  Does he like it, not particularly but he does it, does he miss us, you better believe he does, but somehow he finds the strength to do it anyway.  As a military wife I have learned to live everyday like he is leaving tomorrow, because while most Americans stand at the stove and fix dinner knowing that tomorrow they will be doing it all over again, I stand at the stove fixing dinner wondering if he will get deployment orders tomorrow and if so how many more nights am I going to get to enjoy a family dinner. 
Then there is the "money" issue.  Do we, as service members make too much money?  how about I give you a look at our finances and you tell me.  Including the bills we pay our bills monthly come to approximately $1,000 a month, my husbands base pay is $1729.80.  So with that remaining $729.80, we have to put gas in our cars, groceries in the cabinets, clothes for us and the kids, diapers for the baby and then on top of that God forbid one of the cars have a problem.  Maybe we do have a little money after all of that but I assure you that things go wrong in a military household just like they do in a civilian household.  So you tell me if the service members make too much money why is it that there are so many Active duty members on government programs such as WIC and food stamps, or if we make too much money why is ti that there is a need for the Soldiers and Sailors Act forcing creditors to reduce AD members interest rates to 6%.  In the town we are stationed at many of the families here make it a habit to frequent the dinning facilities that offer military discounts not just because we appreciate it or because it makes us feel special to pull that ID out but mainly because 10% here and there add up real quick and like most Americans we don't always feel like cooking either we want to dine out once in awhile as well.
Had you asked me when we enlisted if I thought we were going to be rich I would have told you "nothing in my life is that simple" and I would have meant it, There is no way I would have believed you had you told me that we would be on food stamps or that we would be counting down the days until payday, hoping that we had enough gas to get from base to housing to my husbands unit everyday until then. Not only does military not get paid enough but when you take into account that most of our husbands go from being deployed for 6 months and then return to 2 weeks off, to go straight back to working 12 hours shift because the base is under exercises again.  You tell me how much you would get paid in 2 weeks if you worked 12 hours a day 5 days a week and then usually pulled at least one day every weekend?

We don't want to "get rich" we just want to "get by"