Monopoly Money – An Ode to Military Humor

I had definitely settled into my role as Chief of the Armament Maintenance Branch, Deputy Chief of Staff for Matériel, Headquarters 19^th Support Command at Camp Henry, Korea.  I think it was fair to say that my wife and children had settled into their new lives in Korea as well.  We had hired a nanny/maid to come in during the week and take care of the kids and the apartment.  That freed up my wife to go out with her friends and take care of shopping and whatever.  That whatever was very loosely defined.  I do believe that I never really got her to nail down exactly what ‘whatever’ was.  But I never really pressed the issue either.  Of course, our new lifestyle required additional funds that I didn’t necessarily have, given my salary.  Cuz military people get a cost-of-living pay raise once a year, generally speaking, and they may also get a time-in-service pay raise every so often for the number of years of service served.  However, that time-in-service pay raise does not occur very often.  Thus, a soldier cannot rely upon that as a source of additional income.  But I heard a rumor that there was a way to make easy money.  And the beauty of this easy money was that it was totally legal.  I had to learn more.  I had to investigate.  The chance to score easy money that was totally legit and aboveboard?!?  Hey.  I’m all in for that.  I really needed to learn more.  So, I started asking around.  The word on the street was that certain officers were desperate to sell their staff duty to any and all takers.  The word on the street was that there were standard prices negotiated for weekday duty that was pulled over-night and weekend duty that was pulled for 24-hour shifts.  There were also negotiated prices for holiday duty.  Of course, there were some caveats.  For the weekday duty, the officer buying the duty (the officer getting paid to pull the duty) not only pulled the duty but also had to return to work the next day.  The same rule held true for a person pulling duty on a Sunday or a holiday.  What was that?  Yeah.  I understand the grumbling.  I understand the complaining.  I can relate to those of you that think that those terms suck.  Cuz believe me, I thought that way myself at first until I found out more.  I thought, “Man, that really blows.  A person has to pull duty all night and then has to work all day the next day.  That really sucks.  Sure, you make a little money.  But is that money worth dogging yourself out?  Maybe not.”  I thought maybe I would only pull my own duty and let other people buy other people’s duty.  After all, I didn’t think we were that desperate for a little extra cash.  Desperate, yes.  But really desperate?!?  I don’t think so.  Then, I talked to some of the old-timers that had been pulling the duty for cash for a while.  They clued me in.  They gave me the straight scoop.  They said, “It’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be.  See, you actually get to sleep a little bit at night.  You and your duty NCO can trade off sleeping and making the rounds doing the security checks.  Nobody cares if you sleep during the night as long as you’re awake by five each morning.”  Once I learned that and after I had pulled duty a time or two, I got accustomed to what actually needed to be done and how easy it actually was to earn the money pulling duty.  I found out that it actually was easy money to pull somebody else’s duty.  After that, I let it be known that I would buy duty from all comers.  There were a few exceptions.  If there was somebody trying to get me to pull duty for them that I didn’t like, the price just went up.  Oh yeah.  No doubt.  If you were on my do not pull list (that list equaled my do not like a bit list), then the standard weekday price of $100 just jumped to $150.  If you gave me any crap because the price went up, then the price doubled to $200.  For the standard weekend price of $150, if you were on my do not pull list, the price jumped to $250.  If you bitched and complained about the price increase, the price just jumped to $350.  At first, people told me that I was an asshole.  I said, “Okay.  I’m an asshole.  Find somebody else to pull your duty.  But after a while, I was the only person buying duty.  Some of the old-timers that had been doing it rotated out of country.  Then it became an issue of supply and demand.  I had all of the supply, so I could demand whatever the hell price I wanted.  And if you wanted me to pull your duty, you pretty much paid my price or you pulled your own goddamn duty.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I wasn’t a hard ass to everybody.  Oh, hell no.  That wouldn’t have been good for business.  For most people, I charged the going rates.  Except on Saturdays.  Saturday was a special case.  Saturday was my hiking day.  If you were going to cut into my hiking time, the price just went up.  And I let everybody know that.  I told everybody that they would have to pay a premium to get me to pull duty on a Saturday.  Their comeback argument was that I could hike on Sunday, which was true.  But first I had to go to church.  Church time with my family cut into my hiking time.  That meant less hiking time.  Less hiking time meant you were going to pay a premium to get me to pull your duty on a Saturday.  Period, end of discussion.  Thus, my Saturday price for people I liked was $250.  However, if you were on my do not pull list, you could expect an automatic $400 bill to get me to pull your duty on a Saturday.  No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it.  That’s just the way it was.  Holiday duty was another special case.  Cuz nobody, but nobody wanted to pull duty on a holiday.  But somebody had to do it.  Since I was pulling duty so often, my name never popped for holiday duty.  So, you can bet your biffy that I got a lot of calls to pull holiday duty.  And I still took all comers.  For people that I liked, the going rate was $500 for holiday duty.  And the funny thing is, I would always get my price.  People would try to negotiate me down.  But I held firm.  Why?  Because I wasn’t on the duty roster, someone else was.  So, it was not my problem.  But it could be my problem if the price were right.  People on my do not pull list didn’t even bother to call me for holiday duty.  Most of them couldn’t afford my price.  It was a firm $750.  And I did not negotiate.  I pulled duty so often that the 19^th Support Command Chief of Staff recognized my voice on the telephone, and he knew me by my first name.  I looked at staff duty as a money printing machine and not as an exercise in futility on most occasions.

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