Sunday, September 12, 2010

Heavy Medal

Yesterday I received a surprise in the mail. Here's a hint: it was from the U.S. Air Force. Believe it or not, it contained three of the medals my dad received in the war. Considering that the National Personnel Records Center here in St. Louis had only forwarded my request (made to them in January) on August 27th, this was a fast turnaround time indeed. The other medals and citations my dad received are out of stock. The paperwork enclosed advised me to write back in 180 days and request the other medals again. Seriously??? 180 days???

While I am exceedingly grateful that we can request the records and medals of our war ancestors, the whole system is way more painful than it needs to be in this information age. I know this is the government we are talking about, but they make the process harder than it has to be on everyone.

I simply cannot afford to hold my dad's book up any longer waiting for things that may or may not come from the government bureaucracies. Next step? I'm going to get some quotes off of e-lance for designing the book's interior.

1 comment:

Mrs. Wryly said...

Medals in the mail--good news. Out-of-stock on some medals and citations--bad news. What the heck? I can make a dog tag at the pet store in less than a minute. Can't they buy one of those machines and crank them out?

Have they ever heard of "desktop" graphics for citations? Scary, scary, indeed.