The Army and Money

Let me give you a little back brief here, OK? As anyone who reads me on a regular basis (all ten of you, and I love yous guys!) know, I recently PCSed to a new station. And as anyone who has moved knows, moving takes money. Quite a bit of it in fact.

So, we have the PCS. The subsequent drive from my Home of Record to my new unit. Finding a house. Renting a house while we search for a house to buy. All of which takes money. Lots and lots of money. The wife and I had a darn good amount of cash stored in savings, but much of it was used. Not a problem, that's what it was there for, and we'll be getting some of it back from travel vouchers but that won't be for another month and a half or so. DFAS is swamped, so most vouchers take one to two months to process. Still not a big deal, or a big worry.

And now I go TDY. I have a 200 mile drive, followed by a plane trip to Detroit. I return on Sunday, pick up my truck and drive 200 miles back to my station. NOW we're getting into the big deal, because quite frankly I don't have the money to be buying plane tickets right now, yannow? But wait, the Army issues Government Travel Cards, credit cards to be used by government employees just for this purpose! Great! And I have one of those wonderful Government Travel Cards!

Which has bitten me in the ass every last time I used it. And it's biting me in the ass now. Somehow, the damn thing never got activated for this particular TDY. Yep, you have to activate it every last damn time you use the worthless fucking thing, and so now I'm sitting in Minnesota with little personal cash in my account, and a GTC which I'm forced to use that hasn't been activated! So I get to pull some of the remaining cash out of my savings to cover my lodging and food! ONCE AGAIN, I AM USING MY PERSONAL MONEY FOR ARMY BUSINESS, AND I AM GETTING RATHER TIRED OF IT! The last time I used the card, I had to wait two damn months for the card to get paid, and I was getting nasty-grams from the Bank of America, a thoroughly shitty bank that I strongly urge that nobody EVER use, and now even though I have a $200 credit on the card I can't use it because some dipshit up higher decided that it wasn't going to get activated!

I'm so pissed off I'm spitting nails.

At least the bank approved the loan for the house. And my wife still loves me. So does my dog. So, I have that.