Combat Comptrollers

A memoir of an Air Force finance troop

Troops in Kuwait waiting to board a plane into Iraq in 2008. Photo by author.

What’s it like to be in the military? I mean like on a normal day. We’ve all seen the war movies, the crawling through the mud under heavy enemy fire, or taking cover when there is incoming artillery.

Maybe the basic training comedies like Stripes or Biloxi Blues. New troops learning to march and getting yelled at by their crusty old drill instructor. But in real life we’re usually not actively at war, and even then, most members of the military aren’t out on the front line.

Similarly, at any given time, only a fraction of active-duty troops are in boot camp. What the heck are all those people doing all day on those military bases scattered around the country?

That’s what I was asking myself back in the late summer of 1992. It had been five years since I graduated high school and my initial attempts at “adulting” didn’t seem to be going all that well.

I had the idea that I would go to college, get my history degree and start teaching high school social studies. I liked history and teaching was a job I could understand. Seemed reasonable enough.

Yet after five years I had managed to complete about two years of college, and even at that leisurely pace I felt burned out by the effort and failed to enroll in classes for…