https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...book1997-1.jpg
Printable View
AF,
that was me. i made e-4 in 1967. that $177.90 was more than double what I got as an E-2 enlistee. Oh, yeah, USCG paid cash. You go up to the tale,there's a yeoman doing the paperwork and a GM with a .45 guarding the caSH. pay was in cash... including $2 bills when I was in the 2nd (USCG) District.
The women who hung ot around the base could reAD YOUR stripes. They knew that the ones on top didn't count as much as the ones on he bottom of the sleeve. In any case, the $ that seemed so big back then looks like peanuts today.
It's kind of fun to remember!
jn
As a Canadian basic Private soldier in Febuary 1974, I got $330 a month before deductions. After it was $90 mid month and $91 end month. That was great after being out on the farm getting nothing!
At age 20, broke and tired after two years of "pre-vet" at a Jr. College (Community College now) and working for $0.65/hour in a veterinary clinic I enlisted in the USAF in June of '63. Something like $67/mo. as a basic. $75 after basic and a stripe. $87 with the second stripe and $99.37 as an A2C and over 2 years longevity When I look at my SS earnings statement history I always note that I actually took a pay loss when I enlisted compared with the two previous years working a $0.65/hour in the veterinary clinic (the clinic had care-taker quarters that I lived in so my rent was "covered" there). I recall too that on 5 January 79 my pay jumped a whopping $125/mo. when I went from E-7 to O-1.
Just remember how much a pack of smokes were and a glass of beer in the hotel was, you were a rich man on payday. Then along came wives and kids...
We could buy cigarettes in our barracks in Okinawa for 17cents a pack! 1968
In Thailand a quart of Imperial whiskey was 90 cents, a quart of Beefeaters gin was 75 cents; not that I ever drank any!
With what I was making a month back then I might be able to purchase a badly Bubba'd K-98 now.
I made E-4 Buck in March '68, went to Andersen AFB on Guam in April '68 on Arc Light TDY. Cigarettes there also .17 a pack. One of my buddies said "you can't afford to not smoke at those prices".
I was never able to keep up with the AF rank designations after I left in January of '65. I left as an E-4, Airman First Class. Later I learned that that rank was now a Senior Airman. Medic's chart shows that two years later I would have been a Sergeant. No wonder I've had an identity crisis.
$270 for E-5 pay
$55 Combat pay
$55 Jump pay
All the beer and smokes for free along with a $5 short time.
Not bad for an 18 year old.
This site shows pay by years.
Historical Military Pay Rates - Military Benefits - Military.com
Pretty scary what they paid us to get shot at.
Skip,
I got $65 combat pay in 1968, 69,& 70. You got robbed at $55
I didn't smoke, but cigarettes in a combat zone were tax free. You could buy 2 cartons a week at $1.00 a carton non filter, $1.10 filtered. I would buy them and trade them off.
In the PI, San Miguel beer was 50 centavos. At 7 pesos to a dollar that came to about 7¢ a beer. And being 19 and not able to drink in the states, we went nuts.
I went to Viet Nam 2 weeks after I turned 18 Aug 13,1966..Spent 26 Months there and returned CONUS on Oct 14, 1968. Beer & Cigs were indeed about 10 Cents each.
What really frosted my skinny butt was that when I got back I wasn't legally old enough to vote or buy beer or hard liqour ..
I've never gotton over the irony of that scenerio..:banghead:..:mad:
If we were old enough for the President and Congress to send us off to war. We should have been old enough to vote for the person/persons doing it to us. But at least that has been changes. Not the drinking though. I do remember getting off the C-130 in Wake. There was a beer machine, went empty pretty fast. I think it was 25¢.
I remember 40 oz British quarts of Gilby's gin and Vodka $1 each. Rose's Lime juice $2. Smokes 10 cents a pack, beer 15 cents. Me and my pal Habgood tried to drink a bottle of each one night and after we passed out they blew up two helicopters that night, we didn't come close to waking up. One of these: "Get up this is a red alert!".... "F**k you"..."That's f**ck you SIR!"..... "Oh, be right there SIR" My mouth tasted like the bottom of a bird cage.
Airman Basic,E-1, slick sleeve or just slick. 1979 = $408 per month. 1983 E-4 sergeant dragging down $1200+ a month (includes money for off base housing and rations) so I'm not sure what the actual rate was probably $800 something. But in England gas(petrol)was $4.00+ a gal and more importantly a pint of Arkells 4Bs was 75 pence. I was told 4Bs was best 2 and 3Bs you paid less but paid for it latter, I'm talking gas not petrol.