Monday, May 19, 2014

So what's next?

Hello folks! (all seven followers of mine!)


Looks like we're getting out of the Army. It's a very long story... but the short version is this. Billy asked for help. He didn't get it. He failed. And they said 'you're out.'

Yeah, we're at Fort Campbell now. Have been for about three months. Three months. That's plenty of time to let a soldier to become established enough for a Commander to decide if he is worth keeping after failing one PT test - if you can't hear my sarcasm/bitterness, I apologize. Considering we just spent a small fortune to move here... living in a hotel for 29 days... moving into this beyond crappy military sub-standard living quarters they call a house... after they lost or broke or jacked up like 10% of our stuff while moving it...I'm done. I'm done with this Army. I'm done with this toxic environment. I'm just done.

I realize I never write in this blog anymore. I think this is mainly due to the fact that it was leaning towards a 'life in the military' genre, but really I was not able to put into words most days the absolute nonsense that we've had to endure on a daily basis. Stuff like my almost 40 year old husband having to have an NCO (higher ranking soldier) go with him when he needed to make an appointment to see the eye doctor. Usually the NCO was a good 5-10 years younger than Billy and what sense does this make? Is he not capable of finding the eye doctor on his own? He has been treated like a child since the day he left for basic training just over three years ago. We kept thinking as he'd get a bit more experience or rank under his belt, they'd back off. But it's like these young guys have such a big purpose to prove.

Billy just wanted to do his job and go home.  Out of these almost 1000 days of Army work, he's probably "done his job" 200 days worth. The other 800 days were full of "go do this nonsensical something" "go clean out some storage shed" "you need 6 copies of the last 200 pieces of paper that we've requested and lost every single time you hand it to us" So, yeah, I think we're over it.

The first day he arrived at Campbell and met with his leaders, he asked to get help with his run for PT. They were all encouraging, and yet he got 0 days of help. So, he fails his run on the first record PT test, and they decide "since he can't run, he obviously sucks as a human being and we do not need that kind of loser in our unit... he's out of here." Yet, they keep guys who never show up, always sick, don't know their job functions, screw things up constantly. None of that matters because all those guys know how to run fast. Good to know that's the priority of our nation's guardians. Run, Forest, Run.

Ok. I'm bitter. I'm angry at how things have happened. But I'm not angry that we're moving on. I'm relieved. I'm ready for a change. I'm not ready to deal with moving again. To house hunt again. To register my kids in their ump-teenth school. I just want to be normal again.

By the way... I'm in my last class of the masters program. Will be done in 28 days.

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