BAH And The Married Sailor

Every year or so, you see a story make the rounds about Sailors who enter into fake marriages to get Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH). In this year's story, it was eight Sailors from Jacksonville who entered into fake marriages with Eastern European women (the guys got BAH and the right to live off base, and the women got a chance to apply for citizenship).

This normally isn't that much of a problem on submarines, since there are so few unmarried E-4 and belows. (E-5s and above, and all married Sailors, are already authorized to draw BAH.) On the surface ships, though, you might have half the crew living onboard, so the chance to get paid to live off base is quite a temptation.