Looking out from the inside

“I can see how
People look down
They’re on the inside.…”
-The Sundays, Here’s Where the Story Ends.
One of the things I have come to understand in recent years is the way societies are like density clouds.

Societies develop systems for those at the center of the cloud, and for them things work fairly well. For those on the outside, though, little things make even the simplest tasks more difficult. As an example, let's look at the military community.

At the core of the density cloud are the active duty soldiers. They get the on-post housing, their kids get highest priority for enrollment in the DODEA (Department of Defense Education Activity) schools, and their moving expenses are paid by the government as tax-exempt allowances. When a soldier deploys, their income is exempt from federal taxation.

Just outside the active-duty are the civilian employees. While our children can also attend DODEA schools, we get lower priority for on-post housing (here in Germany we’ll have to live off-post), and while the government will pay our moving expenses, this counts as taxable income. When civilians (including diplomats) deploy, their income is still taxable.

On the outside of the military community are groups like contractors, locally-hired civilians, and activated reservists.

Contractors have to pay their own moving and housing expenses (unless covered by their employer), and their kids can only attend DODEA schools on a space available basis. In small or remote bases like Vilseck, some contractor families have been left high and dry this year; they’re not eligible to attend German schools and there’s no space at the DODEA school.

This means they have to figure things our for themselves, often with very little notice. So while my kids received their schedules last week and went to school on Monday, some families only found out on Friday that there’s no more space available. As one parent said, “That email came at 16:59 in the evening, which basically left me with two working days to figure out what to do,” [Source: Stars and Stripes]

Locally-hired U.S civilians don’t get a housing allowance, and they miss out on other benefits like "home leave." A U.S. citizen would be in this position if they were contractor working in Germany but then got hired as a U.S. federal employee in Germany. As a consequence, they would miss out on the roughly $40,000 a year housing allowance.

And then there are activated reservists. Unlike active-duty soldiers, activated reservists assined overseas can't bring their families, and so are entitled to two housing allowances if forced to live off-post. However, due to a deliberate misinterpretation of the rules, in 2016 the Army in Germany decided to deny reservists the secon housing allowance.

It resulted in a years-long lawsuit that was only decided in 2021, yet even then did not fully compensate the plaintiffs. Soldiers "were denied promotions, and some were forced out of the service." Moreover, the damage lingered for some reservists even after they transitioned to the civilian sector, with those who had been flagged in criminal databases having difficulty passing background checks. [Source: Stars and Stripes]

That last case is particuarly interesting. Here was a situation where the system deliberately and knowingly messed over a small portion of the military community -- one that was too small to successfully defend its interests. And I'm guessing that everyone else in the community was so interested in promoting their own interestes that it wasn't a priority.

I say "guessing" because -- honestly -- that's how I was when I was on active duty. I cared more about problems I understood than problems I didn't. Perhaps that's natural, but that's also part of the problem.

Philippians 2:3-4 says, "...in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others." [Source: Bible Gateway, NIV]

So there is a lesson for me in this. As a person on the inside, I should be more concerned with looking out for those on the outside. I should have an awareness and an empathy for those on the fringes. And I need to find find a way to help.