You've probably heard this famous quote from Anatole France (1844-1924):
The majestic quality of the law which prohibits the wealthy as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges, from begging in the streets, and from stealing bread.
Advance of the 6th Wisconsin at the Antietam, Sept 17, 1862.
Today, many of the families of such men would be on food stamps.
But there's more and it's good and astoundingly relevant to our times: The quote is from volume one of
The Red Lily, (
Le Lys rouge), Chapter VII (1894):
Nowadays it is a duty for a poor peasant to be a soldier. He is exiled from his house, the roof of which smokes in the silence of night; from the fat prairies where the oxen
graze; from the fields and the paternal woods. He is taught how to kill men; he is threatened, insulted, put in prison and told that it is an honor; and, if he does not care for that sort of honor, he is shot. He obeys because he is terrorized, and is of all domestic animals the gentlest and most docile. We are warlike in France, and we are citizens. Another reason to be proud, this being a citizen! For the poor it consists in sustaining and preserving the wealthy in their power and their laziness. The poor must work for this, in presence of the majestic quality of the law which prohibits the wealthy as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges, from begging in the streets, and from stealing bread.
France was not complaining in general about the inherently unequal nature of the laws, but of the fact that it was the poor of the nation who sustained the rich.
Consider the pay earned by a private (E1) in our own army. It's $18,378 per year. In the civilian world, someone who worked 40 hours a week for 52 weeks in a year (2080 hours) would earn $8.84 per hour for that wage.
The 2014 poverty guidelines fix $19,790 as the line for a family of three, $23,850 as the line for a family of four, and $27,910 for a family of five.
A private would only rise above the poverty guideline after four years of service, and promote to Private First Class (E3), whereupon the pay rises to $24,418.80, and $27,936 for specialists and corporals. While there are some other forms of compensation for soldiers, the simple fact is that a large number of military families are forced to rely on food stamps. Nor is it easy for military spouses to find second jobs. Often their children are young, and the moving about that comes with a military career inhibits the employment of the spouse.