This a post that I didn’t want to write.
This is the post where I tell you, “You might not be seeing me much in a month or so, because I’m not sure how I’m going to pay the water bill* this month, or keep the cars insured*, never mind internet access.”

This is the post where I admit that the scales have tipped, and I feel more defeated than angry. The one where the system? Is kicking my ass.

It’s a looooong story, but I’ll try to sum it up. When TheMan was considering going back to school, a major deciding factor in whether or not we could swing it, was the GI Bill, aka “Money that was promised to TheMan for his educational expenses, because he put four years of his post-high-school life into the military.”

Now, we’ve worked with the government before. We’ve worked with the V.A. system before.
We realize that they are slower than mud, and fond of red tape. It is what it is.
So we planned. We looked at the time frame they gave us for how long it would take between submitting an application, and when we could expect to see payment. We tacked an extra month onto that when we planned.

Ah, but things did not go according to plan, not even a little. After trying to work with the unresponsive school rep, who seemed to know little about the GI Bill, despite it being part of her departments advertised services, we called our local county V.A. office.
They gave us a form to fill out, they told us to give it back, and we’ll send it in for you.
So we did. And we waited, patiently.
Then we called the national hot line, to see what the status of TheMan’s application was.

And we found out that, not only had they never received a form, but even if they had gotten it, it wouldn’t have been the right one.
Lovely. At this point? We were starting to run low on funds, despite TheMan working part-time for his mother.
And my pavement pounding? Was NOT turning up a job. At all.

Our next step was to call our congressman, Steve Kagen, and speak with the guy on his team who handles veteran affairs, Ron Lecker.
Initially, I was thrilled. Mr. Lecker said he would send us a release form, and that we would get this all straightened out.
Then there was illness in the office, and our family fell through the cracks…again. The form was never sent out.

After apologies from Mr. Lecker, we received the form last Saturday, 10/31/09. I mailed it back the following Monday, and the USPS assures me it arrived on Wednesday morning.

Hopefully, this time, we won’t fall through any more cracks. Hopefully, Congressman Kagen will be able to work miracles. Because I will tell you right now, I’ve been picking and choosing what bills to pay for the last month. And some of them are starting to get a wee bit cranky. But at this point? There’s no picking and choosing. They are all screwed.

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*At the time I wrote this, I honestly didn’t know where we would get the money for these two bills, each in the NEED TO PAY IMMEDIATELY! catagory. Thankfully, the credit union is done investigating the fraudulent charges (which I totally thought I wrote about, but now can’t find), and the returned money (after our account is no longer negative) is just enough to cover those two bills. Even the small miracles count.

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• Busy. Insanely Busy.
• GTT: The Complain-y One
• Embarrassment, Empty Wallets and Whorish Behaviour
• This Week? Not an Improvement.

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Tags: congressman, gi bill, government, kagan, military, usmc, va, veteran