While discussing REI with a soldier the other day he said to me "I have $10,000 saved up, and might be able to scrape up $20,000 by the time we get home.

I would highly recommend real estate investment if after 3/6/9 yrs you want out of the Guard you will be very stable.Keep in mind if they sign you for a bonus or education benefits you must uphold your obligation.If you at any time leave or get thrown out the money they give you they take back aka IRS they get their money one way or another lol I've seen it first hand with one of my soldiers they take it without warning. 

Perfection is never an option in this game as most of us know, but these little soldiers we call dollars still need the best advantaged set up for their use.I'm writing this because I'm going to pull the trigger on a commercial lease and in the past I've had better luck with getting an actual lease contract when dealing direct with the owner.

Most Soldiers will buy a house for retail price, PCS, and rent the house out because they put nothing down (VA loan) and they have zero equity.

Probably former Soldiers who were chaptered out for bad conduct and never left town.  

Till then i will try to figure out ways to treat my W-2 income as soldiers that i don't want to sacrifice (spend).It's going to take a little time to get to a frugal (Scott Trencher) lifestyle going but i am moving towards it.

Just had to add my two-cents here regarding @Alexander Felice's comments:1)  Seems like a strange place to voice housing discrimination against military- considering most people in this forum have honorably served their country.2)  The mostly young Air Borne soldiers of Fort Bragg vs pilot trainees in an 18 month program are two very different things.  

Enlisted soldiers (who make half what officers make) tend to rent properties no more than 15-20 mins from the base they work at.

That sounds good to me, but then I also cringe at the thought of paying taxes this year for that income.Because of Fort Bragg, this is a market and revolves heavily around soldiers coming and going.

They can help the Soldier pay you or punish him for indebtedness, but they can't make him, and most CDRs and 1SGs aren't very interested in your problem.