Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Burn Baby, Burn

So yesterday I received the long-awaited correspondence from the National Personnel Records Center. Judging by the size of the envelope, I knew it was not going to be good. Basically they regret to inform me that military records up through the letter "L" in the alphabet (our last name begins with "K" - lucky us) burned in a fire in St. Louis in 1973. Guess there is no sense trying to light a fire under someone at that office - sounds like someone beat me to it!

Wouldn't you think that when I sent in the request back in January that a staff member could have immediately looked at the dates of service and then at the last name and fired off an email to me stating that the records no longer exist? Why drag it out so long? That serves no purpose for anyone. While the letter advised that fortunately some records can be reconstructed using other sources, it gives no indication of what those sources might be. Gee, thanks for the help!

But they were pleased to inform me that my request for duplicates of dad's medals and citations had been approved, and they sent the appropriate form off to the Air Force. Again, this was all part of my request to them back in January. Why couldn't they have at least submitted that to the Air Force right away? God only knows how long it will take to hear from the Air Force now. The inefficiencies in our government system never cease to amaze me. Somebody needs to hold their feet to the fire.

1 comment:

Mrs. Wryly said...

Job security for them. Our tax dollars at work, or not.