July 20, 2004


Write your CongressCriminal

When we start paying our enlisted men and women, especially those at the pointy edge of the spear maybe this will be a little less disconcerting. Watching supposedly "American" companies and individuals prey on those who are in many ways highly vulnerable makes me sick.

Nicholas Stachler was 19 years old when he reported for basic training with the Army at Fort Benning, Ga., before shipping out for 11 months to Iraq.

A gentle, trusting man, he had only weeks earlier graduated from high school with a handful of trophies in hockey and soccer, middling grades and hardly a clue about how to handle his money. He had held only casual jobs baby-sitting and mowing lawns and had never opened a checking account. The bus trip to boot camp, from the foothills of the Appalachians in southern Ohio to the kudzu-covered fields of western Georgia, took him farther from home than he had ever been.

About six weeks into his training - six weeks of combat drills and drummed-in lessons in Army ways - he tasted one of the less-honorable traditions of military life: a compulsory classroom briefing on personal finance that was a life insurance sales pitch in disguise.

Oh and it gets worse. One of the companies involved in this type of thing actually has GEN Zinni as a sort of a 'pitch man', something I think he ought to give up...the lucre may be good, and the company he's 'working' for may be 100% aboveboard, but as long as allegations of this type of thing are floating around, there's no reason for him to bring his good name to what might be seen as 'interesting' business dealings.

Every serviceperson has access to some good, solid financial advice and services from companies like USAA, if they're eligible to join, or military credit unions, like Navy Federal and Pentagon Federal; they offer financial products that will meet the needs of service members and their families and they don't have to resort to 'interesting' practices to get business. Dollars to Donuts GEN Zinni is a member of both USAA and Navy Federal...

The solution to this is to pressure the congressCriminals to tighten up the laws and put some teeth into enforcement oversight against these predators. No E-4 should be buying financial products it takes an MBA to decipher and then losing their ass in the process while they are facing combat...why not just start selling them derivatives or something? It seems that these "salesmen" took advantage of a system that's badly in need of repair, to the detriment, it seems to me, of Good Order and Discipline...

posted by Jo Fish on 07.20.04 at 07:25 PM





Comments:

I remember going through the payline and dreading all the little stations spread about. The first would be the First Sergeant demanding a contribution to the Slush Fund. Next would be another wanting money for the Orphanage Fund, then another for the Old Soldier Home. And on and on. When I was a private I made a whopping $78 a month. By time these freeloaders got through with me I had maybe enough for a carton of smokes and my laundry fees.

Today the soldiers make more, but everything cost more. The wages are still not enough to keep them off the food stamps rolls if they have a family. Then we have these leeches conning these young soldiers for insurance they don't need. It is criminal.

Today the armed forces insurance pays out $250,000. When I was in it was only $20,000. For this $250,000 coverage the services withholds about $14 a month. That is fair and makes sense. But these outside firms are charging in excess of $100 a month for coverage on top of what they alread have.

The commanders and First Sergeants should be held accountable for this rip off of our troops. They are supposed to look out for our soldiers, not be a part of the apparatus set up to bilk them out of their already pitiful pay. Shame on them.

posted by: Lowell on 07.21.04 at 10:47 AM [permalink]



i just finished reading all of that. those agents knew they were breaking the rules and didn't give a damn, because they knew there would be little or no backlash.

sonsabitches.

check out the follow up article too. shows the entire fish is rotten.

posted by: DesertJo on 07.21.04 at 05:19 PM [permalink]



Thanks for posting this. Many moons ago I was a division officer for 24 deck seamen on a gator. I don't know what went on at boot camp but I can attest to the bloodsucking vampires out there trying to scam junior enlisted out of their pay.

posted by: Mr. Ed on 07.21.04 at 06:01 PM [permalink]



Horrible story. And I was disappointed to see Democratic congressmembers aiding and abetting.

But on the plus side--damn, that's a fine bit of journalism.

posted by: Molly, NYC on 07.21.04 at 08:51 PM [permalink]






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