The Army Way --Penny Wise, Penny Foolish

Recently I published an exchange of letters between David K. Ellison, a former captain in the Marine Corps, and the Marine Corps quartermaster, concerning a 75-cent meal Ellison took with a group of enlisted men he was escorting from the Pacific to the States in World War II. The quartermaster asked Ellison to remit the 75 cents. (Officers were supposed to pay for their own meals.) He did, with the comment that this incident “should put to rest for all time the question of how we won the war in the Pacific.”

Corroboration of the Marine Corps’ exactitude in accounting comes from Samuel Rimler, who recalls that he received a similarly formal and detailed bill from the Corps paymaster for 42 cents he was overpaid on his discharge.

The quartermaster explained the error in detail, and concluded:

“As you received $.42 from the U.S. Government to which you were not entitled, it is requested that you remit to this office the sum of $.42 at the earliest practicable date. . . . In view of your service and experience in the Marine Corps, it is believed that you will give this matter your immediate attention.”

Like Ellison, Rimler paid.

I suppose this sort of petty bookkeeping has been going on ever since men were under arms. Donald Tuzin, professor of anthropology at UC San Diego, has dug up a letter Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, wrote to his superiors in London during the Peninsular Campaign (1808-1814) in which he drove Napoleon’s forces from Portugal and Spain.

“Gentlemen:

‘While marching to Portugal . . . my officers have been diligently complying with your requests which have been sent by H.M. ship from London to Lisbon and then by dispatch rider to our headquarters.

“We have enumerated our saddles, bridles, tents and tent poles, and all manner of sundry items for which His Majesty’s Government holds me accountable. I have dispatched reports on the character, wit and spleen of every officer. Each item and every farthing has been accounted for with two regrettable exceptions for which I beg your indulgence.

“Unfortunately, the sum of one shilling and ninepence remains unaccounted for in one infantry battalion’s petty cash and there has been a hideous confusion as to the number of raspberry jams issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain. This reprehensive carelessness may be related to the pressure of circumstance since we are at war with France, a fact which may come as a bit of a surprise to you gentlemen in Whitehall.

“This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request elucidation of my instructions from His Majesty’s Government, so that I may better understand why I am dragging an army over these barren plains. I construe that perforce it must be one of two alternative duties, as given below. I shall pursue either one with the best of my ability, but I cannot do both.

“1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London, or perchance

“2. To see to it that the forces of Napeolon are driven out of Spain.

“Your most obedient servant,

WELLINGTON”

I was once one of those copy-boys that Wellington scorned. While serving in the Civilian Conservation Corps, which was run by Army officers, I was stationed for a while in the quartermaster’s office at March Field. I was one of several CCCs who kept accounts in narrow loose-leaf record books. We had to account for every spoon, cup, belt, knife and pot issued to each of the 33 camps in our district, and also for every one reported lost. Of course each article was described in Army nomenclature, backward--kit, mess, field for field mess kit. It was incredibly tedious work. Every captain in every camp was supposed to keep track of every article issued to him, and report any losses in periodical surveys. If six spoons were reported lost, we had to deduct six from the total on our books. That’s all we did, all day long, day after day.

I’m sure the armed forces are thoroughly computerized today, but I have no doubt that some clerks are still keeping track of every spoon, cup, belt, knife and pot, not to mention aircraft, stealth, $500,000,000.

Our military seems obsessed with pennies, yet it blows billions on weapons of dubious value.