A Friend in Deed: When lie gets rough, the Air Force Aid Society an smooth the way

Airman, Dec, 2001 by Mark Kinkade

Stories of personal tragedy are legion in any Air Force Aid Society office. But as the people there will tell you, it doesn't take a tragedy to need help. Sometimes, life just gets out of control.

Tech. Sgt. Terry Burden seemed to have a good handle on his life and his family's future. He lived with his wife, Kendra, and daughter in their own home near Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. His little girl was old enough for elementary school, and his wife had a good job. He was paying off his student loans, and the Burdens were finally getting to the point where they could invest extra money every month.

But when his wife said she was pregnant, the life he planned suddenly evaporated.

"We didn't plan to have more children quite that early," the 12th Fighter Wing military equal opportunity officer said. "We were planning for the next stage in our life. Now we had to change those plans."

Any hopes of keeping his finances level were crushed when the baby was born prematurely at 23 weeks. Weighing less than 2 pounds, the boy had a host of medical problems that kept him in the base's military hospital for three months.

Kendra quit her job to be with their child. Now the student loan payments and the entire household budget were coming out of Burden's paycheck. When the baby was released, the hospital presented the family with a bill for more than $1,000 to cover the daily room cost.

In short order the family burned through their savings and tumbled into a deep ravine of debt. The hole got deeper when doctors told the family the baby would need an oxygen monitor and other equipment at home.

"There was a lot of stress on the family," Terry said. "I didn't expect the bill to be that large. Emotionally and financially, I was overwhelmed."

He considered a commercial loan, but his first sergeant recommended the Air Force Aid Society for help.

Eventually, Air Force Aid gave the Burdens a $1,000 grant to pay the bill. The society also helped line up a special needs daycare camp for their son when Kendra went back to work.

Now the Burdens are on track. Life for the family isn't what it once was, but the drain on both the pocketbook and their emotions has eased.

"I don't feel like I'm in total control yet," Terry said. "But we are more comfortable. We're able to focus on our children, instead of worrying so much."

People who turn to Air Force Aid aren't always the victims of overwhelming tragedy, said Randolph AFAS personal financial program manager Joan Orosco. Many find themselves trapped by a series of small events that spiral out of control.

"People often don't think about what might happen if a small event occurs, or if something unexpected comes up," she said. "A lot of what we see are people who have something happen and then everything starts to fall apart."

Like the Burdens, Airman 1st Class Maria Rivas and her husband, Mario, had everything in control until he needed surgery for a kidney ailment. The salary he earned doing pipe construction on oil rigs not only kept the Rivas' in comfortable financial condition, but also allowed them to send money to his mother in Honduras.

The surgery put him out of work. It didn't take long for their savings to disappear as well. Soon they were a month behind in what Maria called "essential" bills -- the car payment, phone bills and others. Like Terry Burden, she thought about a commercial loan first.

"It was hard to get a loan," the Headquarters, Air Force Personnel Center customer service technician said. "Some of us don't have such good credit. We were stuck."

After talking to some people in her office, Rivas went to the society and was able to get a loan. Mario is back at work, the bills are caught up, and the couple is paying back the loan via allotment.

"When he got sick, it was something we didn't expect," Maria said. "We were in trouble and wouldn't have found a way if we hadn't talked to Air Force Aid."

For many, loans and grants are coupled with budget training, Orosco said. However, there are people who have to deal with circumstances they never expected, and a one-time loan is enough to solve the problem.

Staff Sot Stephanie Don, a logistics support technician with the Office of Special Investigation's Detachment 401 at Randolph, turned to Air Force Aid at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., when her father had problems dealing with a recent divorce from her mother.

"He fell into a depression," Don said. "When he implied that he had lost all hope and made comments about me carrying on and continuing to do well in life, it worried me. I needed to get home to be with him."

Air Force Aid not only loaned money for round-trip airfare, but it also arranged counseling to help Don cope with the stress of the situation.

"I was scared for him," she said. "The visit helped. We're both doing pretty good."

Regardless of the reasons why people have problems, Air Force Aid can help, Orosco said.

"There are people who think coming to us will hurt their careers, or be seen as a negative thing," she said. "It's a lack of dealing with the problem that will hurt."