Losing a little faith....

Dear Army,

This is not a “Please don’t send him to Iraq” letter. Much as it hurts, terrorizes, and just plain freaks me the hell out, I have accepted that he is deploying. This is, after all, his job. No, there is entirely different matter weighing on my mind right now, and I am dragging out my personal soapbox to expound upon the matter. (Wow.. that sounds smart. Here’s hoping the rest of it does.)

Since the moment I nearly hyperventilated through my first battalion town hall, all I have heard is “Trust us. We are here to help you. We can take care of you while you take care of him.” So with this in mind, I put my faith in you, when we turned in the papers for the increase in housing. Also known as the Basic Allowance for Housing. This increase in pay will go towards keeping us in our house, paying for our truck, keeping food on the table, laundry soap on the washer, the lights on, everything we need in our life.

I was at company headquarters the day we turned it in, the first of April, making sure you had everything you needed. My social security number, my birthday, copies of the marriage license, the lease, any and all sundry paperwork that you, Dear Army, demanded. (This was my first lesson in how much the Army loves paperwork). I sent the Sergeant off to California the following Monday, and settled in to wait.

I gave you the first paycheck. I understood that it took some time to get everything sorted out, to get the numbers crunched, everything verified, and pay started. But then the next paycheck came, and no money. I found out that the nitwit (not the phrase I wanted to use, but I’m hellbent on keeping this clean), whose sole job within the company is to file paperwork like this, did not do her job, and thus, the paperwork had not been filed. This was now a month past when we had turned the paperwork in.

The Sergeant comes home, and informs me that more paperwork is needed. That now we have to have paperwork from his First Sergeant, stating that yes, we did file the paperwork, and no, it was not filed properly, (wasn’t filed at all), before finance could step in and file the paperwork for us. Instead, while going through the paperwork necessary for deployment, the Sergeant had it filed then. So, the first of June, we had back pay. All’s well that ends well, right?

No. All is not definitely well.

This entire ordeal left my faith in you shaken. If I can not trust the Army, with it’s vast resources, to make a change in the Sergeant’s paycheck, and rather, force us to suffer through a month and a half of juggling bills to pay, things to do, and groceries, then how am I supposed to trust you with something more important?

And an aside; when I entered the DEERS program, my birthdate was screwed up. Thanks for that hassle too.

How am I supposed to trust you, Dear Army, with my finances, with my health, with the schooling that I am entitled to, when I can not trust you to make this adjustment? When you let someone apparently so incompetent she cannot file paperwork properly, she can not DO HER JOB, continue to do that same job? Do I just go on a wing and prayer, that when I need you, you will take care of me?

Another aside: When I visited the ER on post, I was astounded by how fast I was seen. I appreciated the care and concern the nurses took with me, and the speed with which the tech set my iv. I was not astounded by the doctor himself. He gave me no answers as to what may be wrong with me, gave me a dose of morphine and an anti-nausea drug, and let the nurse discharge me. It was my regular doctor who said “Yes, you have acid reflux”.

I am an Army brat, in every sense of the word; my father, three brothers, two uncles, and my grandfather have all served. I have heard, and experienced you Army, at your best, as you took care of some of the most important people in my world. I know enough about you, to expect; to demand as nicely as I can, more of you. I expect you to get my birthday right, to have doctors who take a few minutes to explain why I’ve been puking for 3 hours, and to pay my husband what he has earned, and what he is due. I do not feel I am asking for too much, just for you to do your job. You call yourself the best army in the world, now you need to prove it.

~Jennifer