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My roommate is a USAA account holder. They are a bank that is willing to tell PayPal to pound sand when necessary, and they gain a ton of respect for that.

Unfortunately though, they have some kind of inane limitation on debit cards that don't let you have more than a certain number of pending transactions. And given that you generally won't know and never can control when a place that runs your card actually captures, it's led to some nasty surprises.

Any US citizen can get a USAA checking account, and it's quite usable with a decent Android app and the ability to easily transfer money around from different banks. Some of their other services, like car loans, are only available to members of the military, though.

Unfortunately they stopped letting non-veterans get USAA checking accounts several years ago. I only found this out when I recommended it on HN last year.

USAA is almost unbeatable for insurance, but I think Navy Federal has a much better banking experience.