real world?
Niknak,
Your approach seems to echo that of the majority who have no idea about Service life. When I joined, nearly 30 years ago, the leaving gratuity did the job it was partially designed for - purchase of a home in your general area of choice. Whether that be on the flat wastelands of suffolk, norfolk or similar or somewhere more hilly was up to us. Having spent a career in the Service of the nation it was just about enough to get a house. Furthermore, the training you so casually mention was, and is, necessary to civilianise what training has been delivered to enable us to carry out the task of defending your right to hold the views you espouse.
The gratuity etc does not cover a deposit now. My daughter is, unfortunately, caught in the same trap as your children. We are looking to remortgage our home in order to provide a deposit prior to me leaving the Service, this will entail me taking more active employment than I had hoped to at the end of my Service life.
We spend our working life trying to guarantee the freedoms enjoyed by you at the expense of personal loss to us, in some cases the loss of life itself. We are housed in generally inferior housing which costs us rent - this is approaching that levied in civilian employment with no further recompense to compensate us for the vastly increasing costs. Council tax is levied at a high rate, centrally decided which penalises those in 'low tax' areas and is not much below that in higher areas. Recent pay increases of 2 - 3% but rent and council tax contribution increases in double figures.
The lack of appreciation expressed by people such as you is a contribution to my reason for leaving.