The Central Issue Facility (CIF) is shown Nov. 15, 2019, at Fort McCoy, Wis. The facility (building 780) was built at a cost of more than $9 million. Central Issue Facility personnel began operations at the building Sept. 14, 2015. Operating out of a 62,548-square-foot facility in building 780, CIF personnel have plenty of space to store equipment and support customers. Since 2011, the Fort McCoy CIF has been issuing Reserve Soldiers their entire Organizational Clothing and Individual Equipment needs. (U.S. Army Photo by Scott T. Sturkol, Public Affairs Office, Fort McCoy, Wis.)

KLEBER KASERNE, Kaiserslautern, Germany—Furloughed GS employee Molvin Pootnose has been dealing with the worldwide COVID-19 isolation restrictions better than most. He’s taken up origami, embarked on a documentary-viewing endeavor to broaden his historical knowledge, and has been practicing meditation daily.

But if there’s one thing that he’s really missing, one thing that would make him feel safe and secure, return a sense of normalcy to his life, it is treating soldiers like utter filth.

“I really love taking some earnest young Sergeant, pulling up his OCIE receipt, and then before I print it off, randomly adding a bunch of Arctic-pattern gear that hasn’t been issued since 1997—and then only to people stationed above Newfoundland or below Chile,” Pootnose confided. “And then when he says he was never issued that stuff, I strongly imply that he’s a liar.”

“Holy cow, does that feel good.”

Pootnose is an employee at Kleber Kaserne’s Central Issue Facility in Germany, and his normal daily duties consist mostly of causing soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and even the occasional Coastie to curse all of human existence due to CIF not accepting their turn-ins or claiming they owe items they’ve never drawn.

“I joined in 2007,” said Staff Sgt. Kim Anders, “which is like two years after the X-SAPI plates were introduced. So how I do I have not one, but two sets of the original SAPI plates on my hand receipt? Their End Of Use date was September 2005! I couldn’t have been issued them in 2007! I even have the ALARACT to prove it!”

Pootnose, reached for reaction, chuckled until his stupid fucking face was red.

“Of course she’s absolutely right,” he said, wiping his eyes, “but she still owes me $7,000, because that’s what the government paid in 2005 for a non-functional Kevlar wafer that tests showed a toddler could push a toy screwdriver through. And CIF doesn’t devalue, so if you owe a shelter half that the Army paid $200 for in the Carter administration, you still have to pay me $200, even if that same shelter half is four cents today.”

“And oh yeah, because, fuck her.”

At press time, Pootnose was using his government-issued laptop to log into CIF records remotely and add 89 items to the OCIE records of a PCSing major, who has never been stationed at the location of the issuing facility and for which he will ultimately have to pay over eleven thousand dollars.