Vic Socotra

17 May 2008

Uncle Sugar

I saw my pal the Admiral out on the street by the loading dock and the still-breathing Clinton National Campaign headquarters. He had paused in his walk to see if I would emerge from the building on my smoke break, which is almost as regular and sacred as a military payday.

The Admiral is looking positively youthful these days. I can’t describe it any other way. He almost glows. He heart surgery as he is closing in on his ninetieth birthday. He said he was out of breath and lacked energy, and decided to take action. The prospect of major surgery at his age filled his many friends with trepidation.

It was a big deal, but he was right. It looks like a decade has fallen off him, and there is a bounce in his step only weeks after the procedure. He knocks me out. I enjoyed the opportunity to talk a little bit about what it was like coming back from the Big One.

The Admiral has a unique perspective on the original GI Bill. He had his college education before he signed up, and stayed in the service when most everyone else stampeded back to their interrupted civilian lives.

He did not take advantage of the educational benefits that flowed out of the Treasury for so many, and with things like the Marshall Plan, changed the world.

We called the Treasury of the United States Uncle Sugar in my time, among other things. We liked the fact that he paid us twice a month. There was a graphic phrase for the actual act, something involving an eagle, but no matter.

It was a twice a month sacred ritual. Back in the day, there was no automatic deposit to the bank account, and we actually paid cash money to the troops. I drew the duty a couple times, being the human manifestation of what the eagle did with clock-like regularity, and the job came with a big cash-box and an armed Marine to ensure the safety of the cash-box, not me. I think he was authorized deadly force, but as the instrument of my government I was completely irrelevant. Purely a part of the process.

There is something quite powerful in stacks of green-backs, and when one considered how many little cash-boxes there were on little tables all around the world it started to amount to real money.

I was responsible for the contents and the return of the cash box, so in those short moments, seated at my little desk, I actually got a chance to play Uncle Sugar. My pants were not striped, and I wore no top-hat.

The troops were different then. Younger. Cruder, perhaps, but they were Americans to their very core. They were my countrymen, for good or ill. Only the ephemeral credential of a college degree separated us, and with the end of the Vietnam benefits, they were unlikely to get one without significant hardship.

The Iron Duke- Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington- was no egalitarian. He had a healthy measure of contempt for his men that I could not share. Wellington started out leading Indian troops, after all, and when he named his Englishmen “Tommy Atkins,” he was not being kind. A good friend reminded me that he once said of his troops "I don't know if they frighten the enemy but they certainly frighten me."

Arthur was very good to his troops, in that he avoided wasting them unnecessarily, and the pragmatic yeomen granted him that.

That is not how the troops are anymore. They are highly educated, most of them to a degree only the officers were when I started out, and technically very savvy. The great class chasm that marked the old service- delineated by age and origin- doesn’t exist.

Another Vet told me that the kids who are serving now are not like the ones of old. They are paid well enough to take care of their own college. He has a streak of the Iron Duke in him, Tory to the core, and I respect his opinion. As to the relative few who grew old in the Service, so what if Uncle Sugar is not going to pay for the PhD?

He has a point, I must concede. There are a couple Mercedes and three houses in the kit of a SF First Sergeant I know. That was the topic of discussion the other day, with not a little resentment about the fancy cars driving around Fort Carson with enlisted stickers on the windshield. The bonuses to re-up are significant, and seem to be working to keep the troops and even some special types of junior officers interested.

I say that if you happen to be a Special Forces veteran, and if those unique skills happen to be what Uncle Sugar needs, and is willing to pay for, more power to him.

It is a fiercely competitive market, after all. The Triple Canopy or Blackwater people are happy to pay what the market demands.

When someone mentioned what even an old fart like me could pull down in the Green Zone, if I agreed to go for a year my eyes got wide with the possibilities. Going to The Show certainly is a viable career option for a lot of folks when times are hard.

I had to sigh when I thought about it. One year of discomfort and the hazard premium and tax advantage would almost be in a position to pay the tax to pay for the new GI Bill for somebody else.

I am an ironist by trade, but even that one got to me a little. I mean, how did we get to the position where we thought the cash box was supposed to show up without a Marine in attendance? The Iron Duke would probably have said that all Uncle Sugar was really supposed to pay for was a stipend to keep the troops happy, and delivering the mail.

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