IMPOVERISHED MARINES
Sixty percent of U.S. Marines are privates or corporals, making an absolute maximum of $21,888 a year (for a mythical corporal with more than 26 years of experience). A newly minted private makes $12,780 a year. No, that figure doesn't include housing allowances, but it's still a pittance, especially if you and your family are stationed in a pricey place like San Diego County. An article in today's LAT profiles the hardships, and some of the groups that help:
"A lot of sacrifice goes on within an entire family when one member of that family is in the military," said Sandy Bowen, the interim director of Military Outreach Ministries, which provides food, furniture, clothing, and other services to hundreds of Navy and Marine families in San Diego Country each month. "These people are our neighbors, and they are sacrificing a great deal in order for their spouse to protect our country."
Bowen sees the people her group helps, most of whom are 18 to 24 years old, as no different from any other young, high school-educated workers trying to better themselves.
"They are moving upward. They are proud to be in the military, and they are taking charge of their lives," she said.
It's often not an easy journey. There are the women who call a week before payday, out of money and needing baby formula. The family that lived in a tent on the beach as they waited to get housing on base. The woman, 8 months pregnant, who was sleeping on an air mattress and called wondering whether she could get a bed.
"You learn to buy cheap and never off-base. You take hand-me-down clothes, clip coupons," said Mollie Stuckey, 25, who brought her 6-month-old daughter to the recent food and clothing giveaway at Camp Pendleton sponsored by Bowen's group.
"Half the Marines I know work part-time jobs in town," she said. "Pizza delivery, bartenders, jobs at night that have flexible hours."
Bravo for the post-Tribune-merger LAT for publishing this regional story, which is hard to imagine under the previous regime. But the story leaves out obvious information: How can readers help? The groups mentioned aren't much better. Via Google, I found out that Military Outreach Ministries is a program of the local presbytery (the Presbyterian church's equivalent of county-level government) and that it's looking for someone to fill that director's job. I didn't, however, find out how someone who isn't a San Diego Presbyterian might contribute. And the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, a national nonprofit group, seems to limit its fundraising to service members. If anyone has further information, please let me know. [Posted 3/18.]