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Chapter 9
United Way
Sometime during Sept. as I recall we were told that a ‘pay officer’ would be coming to our ‘hill’ to pay the troops. Sure enough a helicopter brought a Lt. I didn’t know up to our position —He was dressed in his khaki uniform with short sleeves—he found a place to set up and asked that we have the troops stand by —in alphabetic order to get paid. I approached the Lt. and asked ‘what’s this all about’? These Marines have no place to spend the money—it may get lost while they’re stumbling around in the surrounding terrain—why can’t this wait until we get back to the Battalion bivouac area?
I knew that many of these Marines had made arrangements for their paychecks to be sent to family members at home—keeping a few dollars for themselves each month for bare essentials—other Marines would receive their full paycheck amount. I also learned they were being paid in cash! The Lt. said he was under orders from Bn. HQ and that it wasn’t something he could change. He also told me that he would be deducting each Marine’s ’fair share’ to the United Way campaign. Trying to remain calm although inside I was ready to explode—I said is this about competition between the Battalion Commanders, Regimental HQ, etc.? He said that it was likely! I suddenly knew that the reason these tired, hungry, thirsty, dirty Marines were being paid was so money could be ‘taken’ from their pay so some senior officer would ‘look good’ in competition with the other
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