Update: we got a paycheck!

Well, we did receive four months worth of pay on February 18 and it was nice to pay the bills. What I would really like to complain about today is the fact that even though we get to pay our bills, we are paying late fees and interest and it's a really depressing way to go through life. Like today, I noticed that after I paid our vehicle insurance through USAA, they wanted us to pay the amount in full on our next bill! That's over $600 a month! So I had to sign us up for an automatic payment with them in order to get it down to a more reasonable monthly installment. Now my problem with that is, I don't know if there is going to be money in the account because the Army can't get anything right. Alas, I will just have to call ahead by 3 or more days to cancel the payment should this occur.

Now I am working on getting our taxes filed so that we can get a copy to Bridgette O'Connell by the 15th of March. I'm not sure why she wants a copy of our taxes to file his next INCAP extension, but it doesn't matter, if they want it, they will get it with no complaints from me! We still have to contact someone with the VA in order to get that stupid release signed and get his medical records released to Bridgette as well. I'll have Michael try to contact them tomorrow, as I have tried emailing and calling them to no avail. Once they get all the relevant paperwork, they will file another extension and hopefully we will get paid on a regular basis.

Also, our old unit POC is no longer our POC at the unit level. They have shifted the job over to someone new who has never done it and was not told anything by our old POC as to how to do the INCAP paperwork. *sigh* same ol' same ol.'

By the way, in my last post, I should have mentioned that the MWR loan only paid "necessary" bills like electricity, gas, etc. We still have numerous things that didn't fall into the category of "necessary," though the entity collecting for each bill doesn't seem to understand that. They want their money.

More on today's update

So after I emailed CSM Collins again (email can be seen two posts down), she forwarded that email to MSG Daniel Salman, who is Bridgette O'Connell's boss as DCSPER-Med. MSG Salman called us at my store sometime last week. He wanted to tell us that he had tried to get in touch with someone at G-1 and had left numerous messages for someone to call him back. He finally contacted them and the person he spoke with said that they did not have a packet on Michael.

Now, with the computer system they use, Bridgette was able to track the status of the packet and for two weeks it has said that the packet was at G-1. MSG Salman told the person at G-1 our circumstances and told him to get his peon to print Michael's packet out and get it to him since this person told MSG Salman that he didn't use the computer system. The next day (today) we have an approved packet. However, we won't receive pay until the 18th of February.

Bridgette told Michael this morning that since the packet has been approved, we can apply for another MWR loan. But the loan doesn't allow for food and other expenses, just bills. So I think we'll just wait another week and a half and pay all our bills when the paycheck comes in rather than pay back more to MWR since we already owe for one loan.

So with the extension packet approved through March 31, January, February and March pay should come through with no problems if everyone does their job correctly. Now we need to start on a new extension packet, but we have to get the VA paperwork again and that is a pain in my butt! But of course I'll do it ASAP.

-Brie'Anne

Update: Thursday, February 5

Email this morning from Bridgette O'Connell:

Date: Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 9:45 AM
Subj: FW: Griffin Incap approval (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

SSG Michael Griffin's extension has been approved through 31 Mar 09. Time to
start a new one.

Bridgette O'Connell
DCSPER-Med
LOD Case Manager/Incap Manager
xxx-xxx-4045
DSN xxx-4045
Fax xxx-5449

attached was the following: