Sargeant Mommy Gets Robbed

I'm very proud of my daughter, she has been in the Army for 6 years. I call her Sergeant Mommy; a mother of two. Her husband is Air Force (14 years). She and her family made the move to Missouri so they could be near family while Lee is sent yet again, to Iraq for a year.

Naturally, this being a rural area, they rented a house for the temporary stay. For the first time since they were both stationed in Italy, they are living off base.

They arrived Friday, moved into their rental Saturday morning, started to reassemble their household Sunday, and took Daddy to the Airport Monday. Today, my daughter began the arduous task of handling all the utility what-nots.

She started out with the trash company. She flipped open the phone book and asked, "What would it be under? Trash?"

"I believe so", I answered.

She flipped to the T's and when she got down to the word 'trash', it said 'see rubbish or garbage'. So she turned to 'rubbish' and it said 'see garbage or trash'. We looked at each other, tossed the book and reached for the next phone book in the stack for the proper area. We found it, undeterred she made the call and realized she had no idea how to tell anyone to find the place for the trash pickup. It's a farm, and the roads are unmarked. So she struggled.

Destiny(Sergeant Mommy): You...uh...go...where are you...? Is from Nevada okay? That's pronounced Nuh-vAe-duh. No not Las Vegas, I'm in Mizz-oorie. Vernon County. Go West on 54, then South on 43 and then you take this dirt road....no, it's paved...a little...part of the way. It's in Moundville...yeah it's a town...tell them to keep their eyes on the right side of the road because if their looking left they'll miss it.

She had to stop about there and tell them to call the owners of the home because of the combination of farm roads and the fact that she feared even she may never find the house again.

Next she called the phone company and that went fairly smooth. She declined the added maintenance insurance since the phone line comes in through the window so having them come out to fix outlets was a mute point (the house is well over 100 years old).

Water was easy.

This is where it all hit rock bottom and left her wishing she'd stayed on a base. The electric company dropped the bomb, a devastating blow to the pocket book.

Destiny: $300 DEPOSIT!!!!!!!!!! Are you insane? Why?

She then relayed to me the reason, she hadn't paid an electric bill for a solid year anywhere. The Service handled the utilities. They have squeaky clean, excellent credit, have maintained phones all their adult lives, bought furniture, new cars, etc. but the electric company wants their last dregs of moving money for a $300 deposit.

Every family has had members that served in the Armed Forces. My Dad was Navy, my first husband Army, these two kids are both in the Services. Is this how we treat all the patriots these days? $300 deposits? Oh yeah, thanks for spending most of your life in the dust and being shot at and stuff for us, oh...and being separated all the time and moved at a moments notice, but we require a $300 deposit or you can forget plugging in your refrigerator for the baby's milk. Have a nice day.

Apparently the mistreatment didn't end with the Viet Nam Vets.
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2/22/2005 8:18 PM