Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
It amazes me that Congress -- the real culprits -- are willing to trust the Schmedlaps to take the sons and daughters of their voters into combat but do not believe they can be trusted to hire interpreters, pay informers or pay for minor projects.
Oh, I was trusted to pay them... with my own money.

Thanks to our dicked up priorities in April 2003, the powers-that-were ensured that BIAP had a Burger King and PX and that each BDE was able to dole out casual pay by the end of April ($200/month, max). Casual pay was to OIF I what CERP money is to operations today - except there was significantly less paperwork involved.

At first, I thought it was pretty stupid that we had the ability to draw casual pay (and even drive to the airport and stand in line for a Whopper) when we had no system to resupply us with such trivialities as AA batteries or potable water. But then I saw the brilliance of this. By drawing casual pay, I could buy my platoon's supplies on the local economy and do other things like pay interpreters. OIF I only cost me about $1400. It probably would have cost Uncle Sam 100 times that, due to the inefficiencies of the bureaucracy. The only downside was that batteries that you buy in Iraq are garbage. They will power your NVDs for about 30 minutes. I think they contained mercury, too.

I often blamed the mercury in the batteries when thinks didn't make sense (which was pretty much everyday). For example, our Bradleys were rolling around with track pads worn down to the metal and we were cannibalizing vehicles due to a lack of parts because the parts flow from Kuwait was cut off on the assumption that the war was over. But we could get Whoppers and DVDs if we drove to BIAP. That was just too stupid to be believed. So I would always rationalize that "we can't be that stupid. I must simply be going crazy due to exposure to the mercury in these cheapass Hajj batteries." Same thing when we were ordered to send our Bradleys back to Kuwait in May. They were racing to turn the AO into a garrison wonderland, oblivious to our continuous drumbeat of intel from the locals that "bad people are gathering in Fallujah" and "Ali Baba says that he will kill me if I talk to you" and "please stop coming to my store - I'm being threatened." I thought, "boy, the intel guys can't possibly be this thick-skulled to ignore this avalanche of corroborated, multi-sourced intel. I must be going crazy. Maybe I should stop being so cheap and pony up the extra dough for the imitation Duracells."