Chits and MPC

If you ran low on money during the month you could buy "Chits" at the EM clund  If you were a PFC  you could buy unto 30 dollars in Chits.  They looked like the old food stamps.  A small booklet with tickets you tore off and cashed. They only came in 5 dollar books.  Cigarettes were 90 cents a carton for Camels, Lucky Strikes,  Filters and Pall Malls were 1.00 a carton.  I think the Em club charged 15 cents a pack.  You could buy whiskey and mixed drinks for 25 cents a drink.  Happy hour drinks were 10 cents.  Once a month they nickle night where every thing was 5 cents.  Drinking and smoking was not taboo.  You could not go to work drunk but if you had been drinking it was no big deal.  We smoked at work.  I did not smoke so I may not be up to speed on all the smoking rules.  But I can not think of any other than No smoking in bed and that was a very serious offense.   MPC  stands for Military pay certificate.   You could not have "Green Backs" or "Real Money.  We were paid and  used something that looked a lot like Monopoly Money.  It was changed every year or so as to help curb blacking marketing.  So when you went off base you had to change your money into Yen.  It was 360 yen to a dollar.  That was pretty good and it made you money go a little further.  A Large Beer was 100 yen when I first arrived when I left 2 years later they were 300 yen.  Ramin was 100 yen a bowl. It was the  real deal and it was very very good.  Each of us had our favorite place to go.  To sum up the money thing, On post was MPC and down town was Yen.  There was no bank, at least I never found it, and most money matter could be handled at the EM club or the Office.  You could not buy a bottle of whiskey unless you were E5 or above.  Of course a soon as you got off post you could buy all you want for 2 or 3 dollars a jug.