How many of you have heard the term "pay day stakes"? When I arrived at my first engineer assignment in 1964 (553 Engineer Company Float Bridge at Fort Campbell, KY) that term was heard all the time. It referred to borrowing money, with a promise to pay it back on pay day, thus "pay day stakes". Back then, we were paid in cash (bills only, no small change). I was sometimes the designated Pay Officer, so I got to witness first hand how loans were usually paid off. The pay day routine usually went like this.
Soldiers lined up to pass by the table where I had each pay slip wrapped around the cash due, with each one sorted alphabetically in a cardboard box for quick retrieval when a Soldier arrived in front of me, saluted and said, "Reporting for pay, Sir". I handed him his pay slip and cash, and then he moved along the line, but was sometimes stopped by the company First Sergeant who was collecting for Soldier Relief, Red Cross or some other fund drive. After that, it became a game of hide and seek, where the just paid Soldier tried to steer clear of any lenders to whom he owed a sum of money. Often, there was little left over when loans were paid off, and the process of "pay day stakes" began all over.
Being a Pay Officer was not that great of an extra duty. I had tens of thousands of dollars with me which I had personally signed for when I picked it up at the post Finance Office at 0530 on pay day, with an armed guard by my side all the time. That stress, coupled with having to manually assemble each pay slip with the right amount of cash before the pay line opened always left me in a sweat, because of fear I might not have enough cash to match the pay slips given to me by Finance. But, for reasons unknown to me, they (Finance Office) ALWAYS got it right, and gave me the exact amount needed. Still, I never knew for sure I had enough, until I'd finished sorting all the pay slips. I can remember, for example, looking at only a small stack of bills left over, and maybe twenty pay slips left to sort. On the surface, it seemed there was no way I would have enough cash to pay that many Soldiers. But, what always happened was that most of the remaining slips had a big NPD stamped on them, meaning, "no pay due". I ought to have learned over time to trust the Finance Office, but I always went into a semi-panic whenever this type stuff happened.
To sum it up, it was definitely a different Army back then, and in many ways I really miss being there. But, if I were to go back, I would want "check to bank" to be an option!
