sgtdub

14 May 2007, RANT ALERT! IT AIN'T PRETTY!
I'm having a bad day. Now before you worry, everything is fine here. I'm just pissed-off with our government at the moment. I'm taking it from two separate fronts from our own people. Some of you may know that last May we had to send much of our personal belonging by shipping containers by sea to Pakistan then by local contracted drivers to our base. Well, I realize that on "paper" Pakistan is our ally, I realize that "local" contractors from Pakistan to Kabul is the way to ship, but really, I don't trust either one any more than anyone else does. So, my personal items were stolen in transit. Did the contractor get his contract taken away? I doubt it. What did arrive finally got here in September while I was on leave. Then I have to wait this last 8 months for more government people to finalize all the paperwork. Now, I try to be as honest as possible and I gave fair assessments for the laptop and flat screen monitor as well as the other big ticket items the government allowed to be stolen while in their transportation mode. I finally get a letter stating that they have determined that my property is substantially worth much less than what I research to replace said items. This got my blood pressure up just a bit. On to today.
I have been working as the OPS NCO for about three weeks out of the last 15 months of this deployment. The OPS 1SG left in the last week of April to redeploy back home. I signed for all the equipment in the office. Well, going through the receipts I discover there are suppose to be "3" projectors, which for the last 12 months in country I have only ever seen 2. Now, they want me to pay for it. HA! Bring it on! They slapped me in the face with me having to wait 8months and then tell me you are only going to pay me a fraction of the cost due to wear and tear my computer might have suffered, and the monitor was 3 months old when I entrusted it to you. Now you think you are going to charge me "full price" for a projector that I've never seen. B.S. My suggestion would be you write it off, since it's supposedly been in the country for the last two years, it's not worth anything, but since we deal in fractions, I'll give you $50 for it. Where do I need to send the check?

My apologies to those reading today, I just needed to write this down, as I plan to send something similar to the powers that be. I hope to be my more pleasant self tomorrow.
Be safe and have a great day.