@lovinglife Oh my god, YES. YES, that was exactly my experience too, as an field grade officer in the military. You said, “As a military commander, I would watch as my lower to middle enlisted and officer ranks would drive in with their new cars that they could barely afford the payments on and know that they had little to no savings. I heard some of them snicker at my old Saab.” On a few occasions I’d have a junior officer or junior enlisted make a snotty comment to my face or in my hearing (obviously they wanted me to overhear) about my modest car or the fact that I rented a modest apartment, and I’d have to immediately “counsel” them for their disrespectful behavior. And why did these subordinates felt free to snicker at a senior officer’s modest lifestyle? Because some of my bosses and some of my peers felt free to snicker at my modest lifestyle. My subordinates were merely mimicking their rude behavior. I do not know what it is about the military but in my own experience, military members seemed extremely concerned with showing off and pretending to be rich. I will never forget at one assignment, once meeting a journalist in the parking lot to escort him into the building. That journalist looked around the parking lot, at the super-expensive pickup trucks and SUVs and collector cars and motorcycles, and he looked at me with a disgusted look on his face and said, “You military people are always complaining about your pay, but just look around this parking lot.” That was certainly a humiliating moment for me.
