I’m sorry to report that even the US military has a touch of arrogance. My guess is that their marketing branch (recruiting) has to be a bit arrogant, but when it comes to parking, they are going too far.
In this case, merchants in the Bronx are irate at the fact that very important parking spaces are being taken by the recruiting department’s vehicles and the merchants customers can’t find places to park. There was a similar case a few years back – I commented on it but can’t find the reference – where the city actually towed the cars and held them ransom since the government was ignoring the parking tickets on them.
In this case, the local parking enforcement folks are simply not ticketing the cars with government plates. Perhaps they feel its futile.
My solution – have the recruitment NCO”s pay the parking tickets out of their own pockets. My guess is that the problem would go away instantly.
The issue, it seems to me, is not the parking concerns, which are bad enough, but the fact that these soldiers and sailors simply think they are above the rules set for the rest of us. Time for a little humble pie.
JVH
