-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! ARTICLE 7 Sisyphus Was The Spouse Of A Service Member Ed.: The compelling case of a Marine family that needs help to pay their daily bills. The story shows that many programs look wonderful on paper, such as the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, but don’t benefit all of our needy folks because of bureaucratic tripwires. If you’re an Illinois voter, please contact Capt McRae and write to your political representatives to stop these bureaucratic insanities. Written by: Capt McRae E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Those of us who live and work within the huge DoD bureaucracy have come to appreciate the ability of the government to turn a relatively easy process into a nightmare of paperwork. The DoD specifically, and the government in general has grown into a maze where the mass of proper forms and other paperwork obviate anyone within a given system to actually make a decision Whoever coined the term "faceless bureaucrat" must have been a dependant. Surely, the woman described below has first hand knowledge of just how faceless and apathetic this government can be. We’ll call her Mrs. Quixote. Mrs. Quixote is the wife of an E-7 with 17 years time in service and has five children. She and her husband qualify for WIC and food stamps, but their personal pride has not allowed them to apply for or accept that particular aid. The first time this woman attempted to seek financial help for her family was this winter. The severity of the Illinois winter, combined with the spectacular cost of fuel, caused this family to have a heating bill in excess of $800. So, Mrs. Quixote was faced with the ugly dilemma of either having warm but hungry children, or cold but well-fed children. She found that a program does exist to aid qualified families in paying for home energy costs: Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), funded by the federal government. Relieved and hopeful, she went to her local County LIHEAP office and applied. She felt certain, with what her husband made in base pay, and the huge expenses that running a household of seven entails, that she would be assured of a little help. Unfortunately, she received a denial. It seems that this LIHEAP office, in Tazewell County, Illinois was and is under the impression that VHA, BAQ, and other military entitlements are to be counted as income. Had she been on WIC or welfare, there would be no problems. However, since she was not on those programs, she would just have to do the best she could. Undeterred, Mrs. Quixote went home and contacted other county offices in the State of Illinois to see if this standard was uniformly applied. As she far as could determine, Tazewell was and is the only county that recognizes entitlements as income. Over the next two weeks, she contacted the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, the Illinois LIHEAP office, the Federal LIHEAP office, the Family Services offices aboard three different military installations, her US Representative, and her State Representative. That’s EIGHT different agencies, just to find out a straight answer to the question of whether or not she qualified. What she got through this two-week Sisyphean nightmare was an endless game of pass the buck, unanswered calls, and apathetic bureaucrats who just wanted to get her off of the phone. All she could find out was that Tazewell County was probably wrong, and that there were a number of military families in the same situation. On her own hook, Mrs. Quixote researched the law of the land, to find out whether she was being treated unfairly. According to Title 42, Sec 8624, United States Code, she cannot be excluded from aid due to the fact that she is NOT on welfare or food stamps or WIC even though she qualifies. Armed with this knowledge, Mrs. Quixote began calling all of the above agencies again, along with the US Dept of Energy, and the Judge Advocate General’s office at the Illinois Guard unit in Springfield. Everyone at LIHEAP knew of her by this time, and all gave her the party line. The JAG office told her to consult with anybody other than them. And the DoE put her in contact with an individual who had been in the bureaucracy less than a month, and whose idea of energy issues was turning off the coffee machine when the pot was empty. To this date, this woman has received no help with her original problem. In an effort to keep the consecutive months’ heating bills at tolerable levels, she has kept the house at a temperature which may not actually sustain living organisms, but she tells me that this is no longer about the bill. To her, it is about broken promises. A government who takes a sizable portion of her family’s revenues in taxes has promised to provide aid to households in need. It seems to her, and I agree completely, that this promise is binding, in that the representatives of the proper government agencies should have some idea what the standard is with regards to eligibility. They should be able to make decisions that will result in timely application of properly formulated public policy. Most of all, this government that has dropped this family in the middle of Illinois, with little in the way of DoD facilities nearby, should offer some form of assistance that is equal to what one might expect were one to live on base. How ironic that bureaucracy that was created to serve the governed only serves itself. ARTICLE 8 SFTT is Right! – Training Base Is Breaking! Ed: This report by a NonCom who just visited Ft. Gordon says it all. A highly concerned NonCom I have had the opportunity to speak to several AIT students in ft. Gordon. The accounts in last week's SFTT newsletter about soldiers having to wait several weeks to begin basic training, is true. One of the soldiers I spoke to came on active duty last June. He was issued uniforms at Fort Jackson, then he sat around for 3 weeks because there was no one there to train him. He was then shipped to Fort Knox, and sat around for another week before training began. When he arrived at Fort Gordon, he was greeted with overcrowded barracks, and a 70 to 1 soldier to Drill Sergeant ratio. He was supposed to have graduated from Advanced Individual Training in February, but because of the delays at basic training, he will not be graduating until May 01. The rob Peter to pay Paul method of keeping things funded has really hurt the training base. In addition to lack of barracks, rundown dining facilities, and instructor shortages, we were told that Fort Gordon is at least $1 Million dollars in the hole for maintenance, so if anything breaks, it will not be repaired. I discovered this when one of the students showed an instructor that one of the connectors had broken off a $450.00 circuit card that he was trouble shooting -- one less piece of equipment to train with. And the instructors? Well they are working three shifts trying to keep up with the influx of students. The instructors aren’t getting any more personnel, although some civilians have been temporarily hired. Some general, I don't know his name, has dictated that training will not be cancelled due to a lack of instructors. ARTICLE 9 Navy: We Don’t Act Like Animals Ed.: A letter from a sailor at sea. I think it is in order to take issue with some of the news reports that portray our men and women in uniform like animals. Most often, when properly led and supervised, they behave much better than any civilian counterpart. Thanks for the heads-up and all the best to all of you under way. By Vince, USN One of the recent AP reports about U.S. Navy ships "sometimes" pulling in to port at Dubai was inaccurate. Other than Bahrain it is the only port that a U.S. Navy ship is able to utilize. It isn't like the Med where we are welcomed as a source of extra income. We are not allowed to go to any nightclubs, pool halls, or restaurants where alcohol is a major reason to be there. Neither are we allowed to drink in town. If you want to talk about hotels we are given a list of hotels we are allowed to use, with permission, and a list of hotels we had better not be found in for any reason. Yes, we do go to markets and malls and some of the small restaurants but that report makes us sound like we act like ill-mannered fools. There would be less animosity if the civilian tourists and technical specialists acted the way 99% of our military personnel act. Are we noticeable? Of course we are, imagine having up to 5,000 polite well-mannered men and women from the Mid-East show up in a city of 100,000 anywhere in the United States. They too would stand out. Although I do not think our commitments everywhere are defensible or desirable we need to tell the truth about what is happening with our military men and women. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. 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