April 4, 2002
Uncle Sam wants his military personnel to stop misusing his credit cards, and it's about time.
The Pentagon has announced that it's charging ahead with plans to do something about the fact that a tiny number of our men and women in uniform have apparently decided that the government plastic in their wallets is a license to buy things and not pay for them.
I can only wonder how these folks handle their personal finances, if they leave the government and banks holding the bag when they make personal purchases on a government credit card and then default on their credit-card bills.
Maybe we taxpayers, in this time of war, don't lose sleep over the tab for a new jet fighter or an aircraft carrier, but the money stolen through government credit-card misuse adds up to a nice chunk of change that could go toward fixing up base housing or giving the troops a raise.
That's our money they're playing with, and a little accountability goes beyond making sure some low-level bureaucrat doesn't end up as a budget analyst. Every credit-card purchase should be for official business only, and violations should be punished immediately and severely.
You'd think the military would have a handle on something like this. After all, they know where to find the offender, so stopping him or her should be fairly easy.
One idea that's a step in the right direction is to make credit-card misuse punishable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But while this will at least give the military a legal basis to go after offenders, there can be added some incentives to not misuse that credit card before someone commits an offense.
When I was in the Marines, all you had to do was say "Leavenworth," and people knew what you were talking about, though "Pendleton brig" also could make my heart palpitate. The prospect of military prison was enough to keep me on the straight and narrow, I can assure you of that.
While in Marine boot camp, I stood firewatch one night for the Correctional Custody Platoon, recruits who had wised off to drill instructors or committed other offenses. It was definitely scary to see them filling sandbags, literally "making" their beds and eating at attention. Just the occasional sight of "brig babies" in my military career was incentive enough to stay out of trouble.
Maybe all personnel issued a government credit card should be taken on an all-expenses-paid trip to beautiful Fort Leavenworth. A tour of the grounds and the accommodations, and the possibility of checking in and never checking out, would surely serve as an incentive to not misuse a government credit card.
Maybe a brief visit and chat with previous credit-card offenders could enlighten, in the style of "Scared Straight," potential cardholders on the ways and means to find oneself a resident of such a place.
If that isn't persuasive enough, the prospect of "six, six and a kick" (six months' confinement, six months' forfeiture of pay and benefits, and a dishonorable discharge) might be just the ticket to nipping military credit-card misuse in the bud.
Vincent F. Safuto is a copy editor for the Press Journal. Reach him at Vincent.Safuto@scripps.com.
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