Government Money

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

I don’t often get email from the United States Army. It’s not that I’m too old to fight, but I’m too old to want to.

So I was surprised when I got a letter yesterday signed by Raymond F. Chandler, Sergeant Major of the US Army (sic). Sure, he’s just an enlisted man, but he’s the highest-ranking enlisted man in the Army, and I’m pretty sure there have only been 13 others in the history of this country. I was impressed.

I was even more impressed when he said he needed my help, and that I was the only person he could trust. I don’t remember meeting him, and my reputation extends nearly to the limit of my immediate family.

But I’m paid to help people, so I kept reading. I’m glad I did, because he was offering to pay me more money than I’d ever make as a criminal defense lawyer over several lifetimes.

All I have to do to earn it, is assist the good sergeant major and his buddy hold some of the funds they’ve managed to move out of the Middle East which they helpfully collected from soaring oil revenue and contracts awards. They would even send it directly to my house, which proves to me I’ve never had Sergeant Major Chandler over to tea, because my house isn’t large enough to hold that much money. Made me suspicious, though the promise I could keep 25 percent of the loot (still too much volume for my house), was mighty tempting.

Then I glanced back at the top of the letter and saw it began, “Hello Dear.”

Never in the proud history of this country’s fighting forces has an enlisted man begun a letter with the salutation, “Hello Dear.”

Maybe the Navy.