CAC Card for Contracted Cadets/Midshipmen

Off topic, but it is one of my favorite stories. It deals with how the right hand doesn't always talk to the left.

As newlyweds we arrive at our 1st base, and got base housing. This was back when you lived on base you did not get BAH at all. Base housing did not inform finance that we were living on base. Here we are young LTs. just married, located at a new base, so when mid-month pay came about we thought it was a little high, but thought it was the extra pay for moving. End of month LES arrives and he see the BAH on it.
RUT RO REORGE!

He goes to finance and they say no problem we will fix it. Next pay period we were paid 50 bucks to live on for 2 weeks. Even though it was given over 2 paychecks they took it all in 1 fell swoop. All because housing and finance did not talk.

My other favorite story is Bullet was deployed to Korea while we were living in AK. Squadron Personnel comes down and says you are moving with orders of 6 weeks after you come home from the deployment. Your RIP will be dropping sometime next week. I get the call from him and he says, honey list the house before I get back, we are moving. Okey dokey! I go crazy to get the house in order and list it within a few days because we are only 9 -12 weeks out and he wouldn't be back for a month.

One week later he gets the RIP from HQ AF MPC and the report date says no later than 6 months later. Needless to say we took the house off the market! All because again the left hand did not talk to the right.

Our DS is lucky because he was a military brat, so it has been drilled in his cranium to always double check everything.
 
I'm sure it was an honest mistake, but remember you weren't an LT. Your husband was.
 
Bad verbage. I only said we were young LTs, because it was OUR checking account. It was OUR money.
~ Just like when Bullet purchased a Vette and it was my commission check that paid off his loan 2 years early. It was our money! I didn't own 25% of the car because MY commission paid off the debt.

I will not apologize for saying WE. If you want, than yes it was an honest mistake. However, you are not married, so bear with me.

I am really old school military. I was raised as a new O1 wife with 3 things. Something in the AF they no longer do according to my DIL (married my DS as an O1)
1. Every spouse, regardless of rank, deserves respect if they have lived this life as a spouse for 1 more day than you!
2. You can never assist your spouses career, but sure as sheatt you can hurt it.
~ Volunteer all you want, but it is still what he does that matters, it doesn't help. Get stone drunk at any function and eyes will be on him!
3. NEVER wear his rank!
~ IE I am so and so's wife!

I get that it may appear that I was wearing rank. However, I only meant that WE lived on his LTs paycheck, hence we were Lts.
~~ When you get married come back to me. Tell me that she doesn't say when we were Captains we had baby #1,2 or 3?

Would you honestly correct her when talking to family or friend if she said when we were O4s, our pay was strapped because we were sent to Leavenworth for CGSC and couldn't sell our home at Ft. Belvoir?

Or are you saying that you and your spouse will never conjoin banking accounts? That you are cohabitants with a marriage license? That you expect her to say for the rest of your life...when he was an O3 we had baby #? or purchases our X # home.

I get your position. I respect it. Just saying that I followed his butt around the world, and yes, myself and all of my dependent spouse friends that are still married, always say WE. It has nothing to do with anything more than, WE (spouses) are describing our life from a time line aspect.

Don't read anything more into it, as a loving spouse describing their marital life together,

Off my soap box.

Yes, My DIL married to my DS O2 says WE too. She is not wearing his rank. She is just saying we were living in Arkansas when he was an LT. They purchased their first home in Texas as Lts.

FYI, want to know how to get divorced from a military spouse perspective? Take the IT IS ME ROUTE, especially when you are deployed for 6-9 months and she is left as the Mom and Dad, paying bills, mowing the lawn, trying to figure out what is wrong with the dishwasher before calling someone in, and shuttling the kids to soccer, baseball practices. Oh and don't forget lieing to your kids about Daddy being in danger or making sure they don't watch the news.

Sorry that I am ranting, but that comment hit really close to home for me. I moved 11 times in 20 years. My kids attended no less than 8 schools.

I was the one that absorbed their anger when we forced them to move. I was the one that enrolled them in new schools while he was doing his HERE I AM on base. I was the one that packed up the house, and unpacked it at the next base while he went to work.
~ So forgive me for saying WE!

We made it, because WE were partners. He never saw me as nothing less than the support system that allowed him to do his job.

It was in honesty, insulting to me, I could have married someone else and had an amazing career. I gave it for him. I don't wear his rank, but I do believe I was part of his success. That giving up my career for him mattered.

Just saying...if you enter a marriage in the military with the I AM military and YOU ARE NOT, than I give you less than a 50-50 shot.

She doesn't want to wear your rank, she is too dang busy reinventing her own career to be bother with that crap!

WELCOME TO MARRIED LIFE IN THE MILITARY...throw her a bone.
 
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I most certainly would correct a spouse if they said we. You can be married to the uniform for a million years, but if you haven't worn it yourself, you don't carry any title other than dependent. Period. Regardless if the rank is Private or General, it is the service members rank, nobody else's. I don't really care if I'm single or married, you were married to a LT, you were never a LT. The separation should always be made regardless if y'all shared 100 checking accounts or none.

You can't tell someone not to use "We" in regards to their child if you use it to claim a spouses rank.

I think you're taking it a little harsh. I know what you meant when you said it, but it is a big difference and the distinction should be made. Every time.
 
Interesting turn this thread has taken but it did make me think.

I have always heard spouses, either male or female say things like "When we were in the Military", "We were stationed at xyz base", "We are being transferred", which makes perfect sense to me. I have to say I've never heard anyone say "When we were LT's, or Specialists", choose a rank. I would say the same goes for friends that were married to Doctors, Lawyers, or other professions, I never heard them say "Back when we were a Resident" or "When we took the Bar Exam"

I do agree that military spouses have a much larger connection to their spouse's profession then the majority of civilian spouses.
 
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derek44 said:
Interesting. I just know as a matter of fact that cadets get a rank of ROTC and a pay grade of STDT. The main issue I really have is that while the rank on DS CAC indicates he is an Airman, the photo shows him wearing an officer's shoulder boards, which can be cause for suspicion among some gate guards or even anyone else that might look at his CAC card.

DanGir what was wrong with their CAC cards? Same thing?
Click to expand...

I just asked my son. He said the first card issued said Staff Sergeant on it. His new card says Student- ROTC.
 
My son said his says E3, but at CIET, they all said different things from E1 to E5 or Cadet. They told them that what was on there was whatever the person making the card felt like putting - haha.
 
Pima said:
I still get on base with an expired ID (expired in 2012) and they just remind me that it is expired. I tell them I know, I am coming on base to get a new one. That includes me visiting him at the Pentagon too.
~ DS got married on base last year and they let me right through the gates
~~ Too lazy to get a new one.
Click to expand...

I'm a little late, but this is the wrong answer. Those gate guards are required to confiscate your ID and are doing you a solid by giving you a pass. You should probably get it replaced before you cross paths with a guard who doesn't care what rank happens to be next to SP on your card.
 
Zero said:
Exaggerated. ^
Click to expand...

Woops, looks like I tripped and dropped chapter 1.14 of this regulation on you. I even picked the one in Air Force-ese since her husband is retired AF.

http://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/af_a1/publication/afi36-3026v1_ip/afi_36-3026_ip.pdf

Expired ID cards are confiscated for many reasons, all of them good. One such reason is that, while the beneficiary may have been eligible for benefits when the card was issued, they may not be eligible now. People leave the service. People get divorced. I've seen ex-dependents try to use ten year old PCS orders to try and use on-post services.

My green Reserve ID card expired the day I commissioned. When I went through the gate to get a new one, commissioning papers in hand, they confiscated it and told me to go to the ID card office to get a new one.
 
USMCGrunt.... First time I came home from Iraq my comment to my parents, "Our young men and women are amazing and will do anything. I have no idea how we can win a war, but I have never seen so much chaos, disorganization, and stupidity in my life."
 
I still get on base with an expired ID (expired in 2012) and they just remind me that it is expired. I tell them I know, I am coming on base to get a new one. That includes me visiting him at the Pentagon too.
~ DS got married on base last year and they let me right through the gates

The above comment does not inspire confidence in me that our bases are being well protected. I am hopeful that due to recent violent events the people manning these posts take their jobs a little more seriously in the future.

I am astounded one can get in the Pentagon on an expired ID.
 
mbitr said:
Zero said:
Exaggerated. ^
Click to expand...

Woops, looks like I tripped and dropped chapter 1.14 of this regulation on you. I even picked the one in Air Force-ese since her husband is retired AF.

http://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/af_a1/publication/afi36-3026v1_ip/afi_36-3026_ip.pdf

Expired ID cards are confiscated for many reasons, all of them good. One such reason is that, while the beneficiary may have been eligible for benefits when the card was issued, they may not be eligible now. People leave the service. People get divorced. I've seen ex-dependents try to use ten year old PCS orders to try and use on-post services.

My green Reserve ID card expired the day I commissioned. When I went through the gate to get a new one, commissioning papers in hand, they confiscated it and told me to go to the ID card office to get a new one.
Click to expand...

Obviously there are reasons, but not everything in black and white is followed to the letter. We all know that. But yea, Whoops looks like I tripped and dropped the real world on you, which includes the military and every other organization or person that is not perfect.

But this discussion has gotten wildly off topic, going to sit back and watch to see where it goes next.
 
sheriff3 said:
I still get on base with an expired ID (expired in 2012) and they just remind me that it is expired. I tell them I know, I am coming on base to get a new one. That includes me visiting him at the Pentagon too.
~ DS got married on base last year and they let me right through the gates

The above comment does not inspire confidence in me that our bases are being well protected. I am hopeful that due to recent violent events the people manning these posts take their jobs a little more seriously in the future.

I am astounded one can get in the Pentagon on an expired ID.
Click to expand...

Be astounded, but also know that for the Pentagon you must show 2 photo IDs. Sams Club doesn't count. DL or Passport counts.
~ Heck, we were invited to an Embassy function in DC. I met Bullet at the Pentagon, left my purse in his office. We traveled the metro. Got there and I went CRAP I left my purse in your office. Bullet said here is my ID, she is my spouse.
~~ They let us through to the party. That was a foreign embassy.

OBTW for the Pentagon, once you get in, they than take a photo ID of you for the visitor pass, before you can go up the escalator where there are 3-4 Guards looking like SWAT all in black holding M16s. That has been true since for over a decade. It actually has been tightened. In 03, I got a Visitor pass, no pic. Now it is a pic.
~ All my ID did was to say I matched my photo.
~~ Just like what I was saying earlier about nobody cares about the rank on a CAC for cadets/mids, Photo matches okay.

Want to be scared? At Quantico Amtrak/VRE is right off the post. There is no gate. You can easily walk right onto Quantico by crossing the tracks. There are no guards to stop you or barbed wire. It is literally cross the street.

As far as my DS's wedding, please let me clarify. I was in the car, along with my 2 children that had IDs too.
~Our children(bride and groom) had to submit a list of all guests to the base 72 hours prior. The gate guard saw Bullet's ID, that was what mattered. He never flipped my card. (military posters will know what that means).
~~ That meant telling them not only their names, but their car/make/year too.

However, I think it is really naive to believe or bases/posts are very secure. Live on base and buy new furniture, somebody has to deliver it. You as a military member can't clear the person that the furniture company employs. Do you believe Papa Johns does security checks on their delivery carriers? I think you will agree many military members order pizza delivery when they live on base. Heck, when Bullet retired we ordered 20 pizzas to be delivered to the Squadron for the party from Papa Johns.
~~ We moved 11 times in 21 years. That basically equates to 22 (1 for outgoing and 1 for incoming) from a moving perspective. Want to know how the military works the movers bids? Lowest one wins! Do you think they clear all of those packers for those that live on base/post? They win the bid because they hire at a low hourly rate.
~~~ FYI, once on base/post driving that United truck, they are free to roam. My move out after Bullet making O4 was called a 3 day pack out. 2 days packing my home into boxes. 1 day loading the truck. We lived on Ft. Leavenworth 9 months after 9/11. I never saw the same face over the 3 days. 9 different people over 3 days got on post to move me out. Same thing happened in 05 and 08.
~~~~ In the end they stole from me more than I can count. We still laugh at how they stole a VCR, but not the remote! Seriously, my kids would scream at me, where is my Nintendo/Wii/Playstation game? They would pocket anything and everything. Jewelry was placed in the car. I hand packed family heirlooms. In the end, I handpacked their games too. Movers never touched them.

Just saying, I think you are not realizing that the Pentagon or my DSs wedding is nothing when you realize moving trucks, food delivery, and purchasing via on line (FedEX) are a much higher risk!
 
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So true, so true. Anyone can get on post at West Point by saying, “I’m visiting the cemetery.” Now, that might not work if you were driving a box truck, but…..

USNA has the best set-up, by being so physically small. No DOD stickers, no entry by vehicle.

But agreed, delivery trucks of all types are numerous and get in all the time.
 
mbitr said:
I'm a little late, but this is the wrong answer. Those gate guards are required to confiscate your ID and are doing you a solid by giving you a pass. You should probably get it replaced before you cross paths with a guard who doesn't care what rank happens to be next to SP on your card.
Click to expand...

Seriously, I am a retired spouse.

Except for DS's wedding, I have not been on any base since 2012.
~ I believe that the commissary exists for those that serve. I am not about to raid bacon, milk, whatever, knowing that there are many enlisted on food stamps that need the lower prices.

In VA, retirees and their family have been shut out medically from medical appointments aspect. We are on TriCare prime or standard.

Many bases/posts also now contract out regarding gate guards. Hence, why I probably do get away with it.

Finally mbitr, you are preaching what my DS says.

OBTW, just this last month I basically almost took off the tip of my finger. 5 stitches top 1/8 of inch for the finger, and fingernail. Blood flowing everywhere. Bullet drove me to urgent care, I forgot my expired ID, and had just my license, which Bullet left in the car due to the emergency he forgot to take it. They took his ID as proof of insurance for me. Went back a week later to get the stitches out, showed my expired ID and they accepted it. Tri Care did too.
~ Don't believe me, there is a poster here that was visiting me when the accident occurred.
 
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