Posted on 01/15/2012 2:28:02 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Somewhere around West Bend, several people have pieces of U.S. Navy Commander Wilma Roberts' life - her furniture, her china, her clothes, financial records, the family Bible, even the ceremonial sword from her son's graduation from a military academy.
Nearly all Roberts' worldly possessions were auctioned off by a storage business last summer after a classic military snafu: Though Roberts, 48, was on active duty in Japan and Kuwait from July 2008 to July 2011, Navy officials stopped paying for her storage in 2010 and told the West Bend company it could sell off the goods - though the Navy bureaucrats and even the storage business could have easily learned that Roberts was deployed and protected from such an action.
A man who bought Roberts' more than 7,000 pounds of stored belongings for $2,101 in June later sold most of the things at a yard sale - just as Roberts was returning. She valued the goods at $60,000.
But it's the moving and storage company, Chips Express, that now finds itself a defendant in federal court.
Roberts sued the firm under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, which prohibits the sale of any active military member's property to pay a storage lien without a court order. The lawsuit seeks actual and punitive damages and the costs of monitoring Roberts' credit record, because she fears possible identity theft from her missing personal financial records.
Her attorney, a retired Air Force colonel in Louisiana who specializes in cases under the act, concedes there were also serious mistakes made by the Navy.
"It's a real crying shame we did this to one of our own, but the ultimate responsible person is Chips Express," lawyer John Odom Jr. said.
The company's president, Hank Schloemer, said his family-run operation has been contracting with Naval Station Great Lakes' Personal Property Office to pack, move and store service members' property for 15 years and had never heard of the law or had a situation like Roberts'. Officials with the Personal Property Office told him to treat the goods like an unpaid civilian lot, he said, and never tried to help him get better contacts for Roberts over the months Chips Express tried on its own to track her down.
Schloemer also disputes another of Odom's claims - that the buyer at auction had doubts when he unpacked Roberts' crates, and went back to Chips Express to ask if there had been a mistake. Odom says the buyer - whom neither Odom nor Schloemer would name - got information from Chips Express from which he inferred Roberts had been killed in action, and went so far as to put up her photo with candles to that effect during the yard sale.
"That's a bunch of baloney," Schloemer said. "I think that was for effect more than anything."
Items packed up in 2008
Roberts, an Illinois resident and a critical care nurse, has been on active duty with the Navy since 1991. In 2008, she was in training in Milwaukee, Odom said, when she moved to Okinawa, Japan, for two years. That's when Great Lakes arranged to have Chips Express pack up, move and store her property until July 2010.
While stationed in Japan, Roberts was deployed to Kuwait, Odom said. She says she contacted Great Lakes' property office to let them know she would be gone another year, not returning until July 2011.
Somehow, that message never got recorded, and on Aug. 31, 2010, the Navy converted Roberts' storage contract to private-pay. In December, Chips Express sent overdue payment notices to an address for Roberts in Colorado, but they came back undeliverable. In April, it sent a notice of lien to the same address; it was also returned.
On July 2, according to the lawsuit, Roberts' possessions were sold at auction.
A week later, Roberts came back from overseas and requested her property be delivered to her new address in Illinois.
Schloemer remembers that phone call.
"Great Lakes called us with directions on where to send her things," he said. "We said we'd just sold it all. The comment by the person down there was, 'Oh my god - I'll call you back.' "
Roberts, who didn't respond to an interview request placed through her attorney, told the Navy Times last fall that when she found out, she immediately tried to get the name of the buyer, but Chips Express wouldn't cooperate until a Navy lawyer intervened.
Schloemer said the buyer had expressly asked that his name not be given out, and the business wasn't sure about privacy rights. "We got caught in the middle," he said. "Finally we released the name to the Navy."
Odom says that when Roberts went to the buyer's house in West Bend in August, he almost fainted. He had burned her photos, and the only thing he kept was her grandmother's fur coat, since his wife had fancied it, which he returned - though with the original owner's embroidered name panel cut out.
Roberts sat in her car and cried for 45 minutes, the buyer told Odom.
Schloemer said that within a few weeks of the problem's discovery, two people who worked at Great Lakes' Personal Property Office retired, and within a couple of months, the whole operation was closed and transferred to Norfolk, Va.
A public affairs officer with the Naval Supply Systems Command's Global Logistic Support, Nannette Davis, did not return a message Friday. In an interview with the Navy Times, she called the communication breakdown regrettable and said the Navy will do more training in storage procedure so it won't happen again.
I’ve heard this happening to a few service members over the last several years. Horrible thing, losing all of that family history. One case I read about, they were able to get some things returned - family photos and a few other things.
Wisconsin Military Storage Tragedy Ping
Please, good people. If you bought a piece of this lady’s life at a West Bend garage sale, please contact her and give it back. I don’t care how much you love it, or what you paid, just give it back. Her son’s military sword should have his name on it. Likewise the family Bible.
This lady has been serving our country and this insult never should have happened.
We went to Okinawa during Nam and stored a house full of furniture, big appliances etc
No problems
Our things were in good shape 3 years later..
We were USAF though
happened to my daughter when she was on WESPAC a few years ago
Am i misunderstanding the story? Shouldn’t the navy be on the hook as well?
He arrived at the airport in Miami and we led him to the parking lot where our grandfather was waiting with a brand new Ducati.
So...............
I worked with a guy who left east coast and came to Germany. He stored (at AF expense) over 10k pounds of household stuff. No issues. At the end of three years...he was offered another assignment (totally separate deal) for four years, which was on the same base, and he accepted. So he comes to the end of seven years on this base and is calling up this storage company. At the end of the first assignment, he was supposed to call up the company and give them another copy of his orders, or deliver to assets somewhere. He hadn’t done this. So they had sold off everything. He tried to get compensated by the Air Force for this...but they told him that it was part of his process for the second orders, that he was personally responsible for, so they paid nothing.
Every one who handled it should be on the hook. The problem as far as correction is all the ones involved were likely civilian employees or contractors. Meaning if they screw up not much happens unless they own the company.
I can not believe the storage company did not know about the legalities involved though. Any company doing business either with service members or those contracted for such by the military on their behalf knows about the sermembers civil relief act. It seems the Commander made it an issue which is great. Their needs too be accountability and immediate correction.
Yes
while we were in Okinawa the oppotunity to be stationed next in Hawaii occurred (Hickam)
We would have had to do new paperwork for our stored stuff if we had gone to Hawaii (another overseas assignment) instead of returning to the US mainland at the original expected time...
That was standard proceedure...
you secured your stored belongings..
I can’t really blame the storage company. They make their money by renting space and when somebody stops paying rent, the storage company has to do something about that stuff. They did take the extra step to phone the military about it and didn’t just arbitrarily auction it.
I also can’t really blame the military. It’s not their stuff and the military has made it clear that you are responsible for your possessions.
If I were in that situation, I’d probably have somebody I could trust, like a relative, look after these matters and let the storage company know who to contact over these things.
Love the tag line!
“Navy officials stopped paying for her storage in 2010 and told the West Bend company it could sell off the goods - though the Navy bureaucrats and even the storage business could have easily learned that Roberts was deployed and protected from such an action.”
The navy itself set this in motion. This is awful. The military owns plenty of land. Storage should be handled in house and not out.
Schloemer said that within a few weeks of the problem's discovery, two people who worked at Great Lakes' Personal Property Office retired, and within a couple of months, the whole operation was closed and transferred to Norfolk, Va.
Whoa, Ducati! Outfriggingstanding.
I never owned anything more than I could pack in my duffle and awol bag.
I agree and don’t understand why a relative and/or friend was not in charge and/or at least listed as a contact. Suppose something happened. No one would know about the goods??
I know of somewhat similar cases where service people leave their goods in storage under a spouses or friend’s name.
Girlfriend doesn’t want to be girlfriend anymore and quits paying the storage bill. How’s the guy to know since the unit is in her name?
He comes home, no girlfriend, no nothing. Now that would fry your bacon.
That was the first bike I ever rode on. Didn’t know it was such a big deal until I told a friend. Guess it was a real rare baby besides. The guy did restoration work.
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