The Military Service Experience of Soldiers Who Live in Poverty

Since its establishment, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has played societal roles in addition to its security-related functions. One of its social missions is to support disadvantaged populations and promote their social integration. Over the years, the IDF has served as a "school of Israeliness"- a major socialization agent, that bestows social and symbolic capital to those serving. As a result, military service, particularly in meaningful positions, is an opportunity for young adults in poverty to change their social position. Nonetheless, despite the compulsory nature of service in the IDF and the benefits of military service, induction in the IDF is not an inevitable step for young adults who live in poverty or poverty-stricken families.

This study aims to gain an understanding of the experiences of military service in the IDF of soldiers who live in poverty, and examines their individual experiences of the nexus of three domains: IDF service, poverty, and emerging adulthood (the developmental stage that spans the period from age 18 to 26). A qualitative study based on a phenomenological approach was conducted to capture these experiences. Thirteen men and women veterans from diverse backgrounds participated in individual semi-structured interviews. In this study, the definition of poverty was based on participants' subjective assessment- an approach that measures poverty on the basis of the individual's perception of their social, financial, and personal situation. Interviews underwent content analysis and themes that emerged in the interviews were categorized, until data saturation was reached.

The findings of this study are presented in five chapters. Chapter 1 constitutes an introduction that describes the foundation of IDF soldiers' experience against the backdrop of their material deprivation and its exacerbation during military service as a result of loss of income, due to the challenge of combining military service with outside employment. Furthermore, living in poverty also creates unique experiences for soldiers and plays a significant role in a soldier's relationship with their environment, which includes their peers and the military establishment (comprised of both commanders and support providers). Therefore, Chapter 2 discusses the individual soldier's relationship with their peers. The primary experience that participants report is their peers' lack of understanding of the participants' situation. Participants also report a lack of sense of belonging, which they attributed to their poverty. Peers' lack of understanding and soldiers' own lack of sense of belonging frequently causes soldiers in poverty to experience a sense of "otherness," either as a result of being excluded or excluding themselves from their peer group. As a result, the vast majority of participants concealed their financial situation from their peers, and in some cases their life story as well. Chapter 3 presents the soldiers' relationship with the military system. For participants, their relationship with their direct commander is extremely significant within their military service experience, and possibly the most important relationship that structures this experience. This chapter is divided into several sections that describe the main aspects of the soldier's relationship with the military system: trust, visibility, intrusiveness and invasion of privacy, and assistance. Chapter 4 elaborates on the stress factors that soldiers in poverty experience, which include the challenges of military service in addition to the soldier's financial pressure. This system, termed in this study as a nexus of stressors, has implications on both the mental-emotional level and the behavioral-functional level. The final chapter on findings, Chapter 5, entitled "The Dream and Its Collapse," presents the gap between participants' hopes and dreams they had for their military service experience versus their reality: In the majority of cases, the soldiers' hopes were not realized.

The discussion of the study findings integrates the military service experience of soldiers living in poverty into theory. The military service experience is shown to be comprised of the individual's emotional experiences that are structured within their relationships and the military context, and by their concrete military experiences. The findings are discussed within the theoretical framework of the poverty-aware social work paradigm (PAP) and presents three circles of deprivation that are manifest during military service: The first circle describes the soldier's experience of material deprivation, and the unique nature of this experience, which stems from the fact that the IDF is a total institution characterized by a conservative approach to poverty. The second circle of deprivation describes the unequal opportunities faced by soldiers in poverty. The third circle of deprivation addresses participants' low symbolic capital and its impact on their military service, specifically on their relationships with their environment, including experiences of othering and micro-aggressions that find unique expression in the military environment. The discussion of participants' cycles of deprivation also addresses the counter-poverty strategies used by participants during their military service, based on the model developed by Ruth Lister. In line with previous studies, the current study shows that soldiers in poverty resist their poverty actively through forms of resistance unique to the period of their military service, in a manner that requires agency. Participants in the current study use three of the four strategies in Lister's model: getting by, getting out, and getting back at. Moreover, findings indicate two theoretical frameworks: relational poverty, and nexus of stressors. Relational poverty, presented as the theoretical foundation of the discussion of the individual's relationships with their environment, constitutes the most significant factor in the structuring of participants' military service experience. The importance of one's peer group is a consequence of participants' developmental stage of emerging adulthood. Findings also indicate the significance of the soldier's direct commander and how the commander's sensitivity to the soldier's needs and recognition of the latter's pain, affects the progression of the soldier's military service and experience. The second framework, nexus of stressors, addresses the confluence of three stressors: financial pressure, the pressure to enter and complete military service, and the pressure of military service itself. The nexus of these stressors frequently causes soldiers to feel torn between their personal situation and their dream to complete military service. This tension, a reflection of soldiers' unique poverty experience, is intertwined with the tension between the desire and efforts of soldiers' in poverty to use their military service to extract themselves from the world of poverty and the obstacles and barriers that they encounter. Finally, the discussion proposes three solutions to reduce this tension: adjusting material support practices to the needs of soldiers in poverty, connecting material support and emotional support systems, and adopting a poverty-sensitive approach by military commanders.

The significance of the current study lies in its contribution to each of three theoretical frameworks and to the connection between them: the poverty phenomenon, emerging adulthood, and military service. An examination of the interplay between life in poverty and military service also extends current research on poverty and the study of total institutions. The investigation of poverty in emerging adulthood also constitutes a novel extension to existing theory. The findings of the current study and the practical proposals offered herein come from the voices of soldiers who live in poverty and I genuinely hope that if implemented, these proposals will make a significant improvement in the military service experience of soldiers living in poverty.