Did you know that Military members used to be paid in cash?

Yes. I was one of them. Enlisted August 1968 into the regular US Army.

Yep, I remember standing in line to get paid. While in basic training I would put most of it in an envelope and send it home to mom and dad. A few years later I was a class A agent and carried around thousands of dollars, even later, 10s of thousands of dollars, it was a heavy load.

Without a time frame to reference what your father told you, it is impossible to confirm nor deny.

I entered service in April 1981 and was required to setup for Direct Deposit and could select either once a month or twice; but that was a very new program at the time. When I got to my first active duty unit after Basic and AIT, pay day at the end of the month was an ordeal. We usually stood a Class A (greens) or B (khakis) inspection/awards ceremony then stood in line to report and receive our pay voucher (LES) from a group of pay officers. “Sir, Private Scheller reports for pay.” The majority of Soldiers in my unit had “Check to Unit” as their pay option, so along with their LES they picked up their paycheck and were then given the option to cash their check with the pay officers who had cash secured from Finance Division for that exact purpose.

Sometime in 1983-4 Direct Deposit became mandatory and Check to Unit and thus reporting to the pay officer and cashing your check were eliminated. This also ended the fleecing of young Soldiers by an exit line of “donation seekers” of “Cup and Flower Fund”, going away presents, Army Emergency Relief, American Red Cross, AUSA, 82nd Airborne Association (insert your division here). All of these were tables manned by Senior NCOs who pressured Soldiers to contribute.

Was there a time in recent history where Soldiers were paid in cash before the times of checks? I’ll wager that is exactly the case, but I do not know the date that ended and checks began.

1983. Basic training. Report for pay. Paid in travelers checks. Sign the checks and move on. Supposed to prevent theft.

We got paid in cash every other Friday. On board ship we got paid in cash the 15th and last day of the month.

Thanks for the question Sgt. Mays

Back in my day, we used to receive little bags of gold from the Pay Master, delivered via Pony Express. ;o)

I remember cash payments from when I first enlisted in September, 1955 through ? I phrase each payday (I believe monthly) was "The Eagle just S--t." $78/mo was my starting pay in boot camp.

We did in Japan 1978. Pay Officer counted the few bills, you verified the count and signed the Pay Roster. He had an NCO guard and they were both armed with 1911. They rode around in M151 jeep to areas of Air Station. Cash in ammo box. If you arrived late you could track them down and get payed at another location. Base pay for LCpl was $460.20, so take home was around $180 on 1st and 15th. Beer in the club was 50 cents so it was a lot of dough.

I entered the military in the 80’s so my pay was always done with direct deposit but for moves and TDYs we were fronted about 80% of the expected cost. The finance troop gave me a voucher that I took to the money window where I was handed cash. Which was over $1K for my first move and I had never had that much cash in my hand! But that stopped in the mid 90’s.