Can you provide specific details on this? My understanding is that even if you were continually at the rank of E-1 (which would never happen), your salary + housing + subsistence would put you well over the poverty line.
The 2020 salary for E-1 was 1,732.94/month or 20,795.28.
This doesn't take into account any housing or other additional allowances.
Sorry, I don't see how a veteran spent their career in the military below the poverty line.
Also, consider there hasn't been a draft for 50 years. No one has forced anyone to take military pay.
2. Salary is provided to the person who is in the service. Unfortunately, the areas that military bases are in are generally not economically productive areas. This especially hurts the spouses who'd otherwise have jobs because they're living in a career desert, and there's not a lot of households today that can survive on a single income. In fact, it was only just this year that the Biden admin finally recognized this: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
3. Substinence (I'm going to put healthcare in this category) – so let's say I'm a soldier who gets injured on the job. Not only is military healthcare awful (https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/healthcare/military-hospita...) but often times they won't even properly care for you to the point you could die: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/pentagon-denies-cl... and so you seek second opinions in severe cases, which you have to pay out-of-pocket. Combine this with the fact that the VA will deny real claims for literal decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honoring_our_PACT_Act_of_2022 and you're so far up shit creek in a job you can't quit...