Category: Journal

Prepared five wills for deploying soldiers and advised soldiers on powers of attorney, etc.  Nothing much more than that.  I got the bus from the CRC with the same soldiers, since I live with them.  Talked to the CRC about my flight but they have no information.  Most of the day the person I need to speak with wasn’t even in.  Once he got in, he told me that that the lady who is supposed to work on the issue “is preparing e-mails to send out” – Wow! what a high priority I must be that the the e-mails need that much thought and preparation.  I’ll be here a month at this rate.

This morning John picked me up after PT and took me to his office.  I asked Legal Assistance if they could use me and at first they said not really since I don’t have a gov’t computer to work from.  I told them I’d do research or screen clients or just about anything vaguely legally related to get me out of the CRC and when they realized I was familiar enough with DL Wills to be able to use it effectively they sent me to the same SRP site I went through last week, this time to sit on the other side of the table.  Much better.  I’m going back tomorrow morning since nobody has gotten anywhere on my ticket.   – Interestingly (and thankfully), MilPay had no problem with my accounting codes, so they actually are paying me to sit here while they figure this out.

BTW, if I didn’t mention it already, if you ever have to fly to Columbus – don’t!  Fly to Atlanta and take a shuttle.  They did eventually get my bags to me.  I think my first bag came in Sunday night (the 28th) and my second bag didn’t come in until Tuesday or Wednesday.  Today I made sure to tell them that when they do eventually get the accounting sorted out that I will get myself to Atlanta and they can fly me from there.  I can’t afford to lose bags on an international flight.

Not even worth talking about except that it was VERY nice out.  I’ve been in a lot of places and I’ve never seen such nice weather in January, probably in the 70s.    Borrowed John’s Prius and drove around post, that’s about it.

I’d heard about it but I only just saw the promotion list.  A hearty congratulations to all my RA classmates!  Unfortunately for us reserve component soldiers it’s not so pretty.  Now to try to decypher AR 600-8-29 ¶ 1-44 and think a bit more on the meaning of all this.

This morning I took some footlockers to the post office for a roommate who left on Friday, then met up with John Sullivan, a classmate from JAOBC.  Spent most of the rest of the day at his house; partly visiting partly just mooching unrestricted wireless time (can’t access Facebook from the MWR trailer).   Linked up with most of my classmates from OBC on Facebook, with thanks to John.

Most of our group left today, but then most were going to Iraq and Afghanistan.  A few are still here.  Some just have delayed travel, others have issues with where they are traveling to; I have an accounting problem.  So because they can’t figure out where the money is coming from exactly for me to be here, they need to keep me here doing nothing and then find the money to pay for it.  On Monday, if there is no flight, I will probably just report to the OSJA on post and ask to start taking legal assistance cases until they can figure out which checkbook to write the check for my flight out of.

I considered renting a car and driving to Atlanta to visit my cousin Teresa tomorrow,  we had tentatively scheduled for around 11:30 but then a friend offered his car for free but not until noon, I couldn’t really justify renting a car for the day then but that put me too late to meet up with Teresa, so we canceled.  Somehow the decision matrix there didn’t work out quite right.  Maybe I need to apply MDMP.  Come to think of it, I need to complete a class online on that topic.  Somehow I don’t think that would’ve helped.

BTW, my posts may indicate being written a day after they were as I have my time zone set to GMT.  Local time is too much trouble to change and Central European Time would be misleading for the present.   (On the other hand, sometimes I just write the post the next day).

Everyone except a paralegal and some docs and I had to draw weapons at 0400 and go to a range and then play in the dirt all afternoon and shoot blanks (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?) , even the officers had to shoot 10 blanks through M-16s even though they are all taking M9s.  Really dumb, fortunately for me, the paralegal talked to the Commander and ensured that she and I would report at 1000 to check in and do none of that stuff.  The rest of the day there was nothing except a check-in again at 1500.   Way to take care of the LT and I may be working with this paralegal again in Germany.  Squared away!

Classes all day on IEDs, Unexploded Ordnance (UXO), and first aid.  Not at all exciting.  Some time outside with simulated IEDs/UXOs which was fine for what it was but particularly useless for Germany.   This afternoon the CRC informed me that they couldn’t get me a flight because of a problem with the accounting classification on my orders.  I called my branch manager and he called Human Resources Command who insisted everything was fine but before that got sorted out of course the day ended, early for some probably, and it’s a long weekend so the matter won’t even be addressed further until Monday morning.  The only good news, a paralegal NCO in the group who is also going to Germany spoke to the Commander and got us out of going to the range.  I guess I’m spending the weekend at least in Georgia.  Maybe I’ll have time to figure out how this blog is supposed to work and get it formatted pretty.

Medical today, I had to have  typhoid shot which is kind of odd, but otherwise my unit had taken good care of me and I sped though all the stations.  Then to uniform issue, but wait, I don’t get any.  Then to CIF for equipment, they issued me a MOPP suit and mask, I guess they don’t differentiate between soldiers who are likely to go to the field and those who aren’t.  They gave me nothing else.

Yes, this is as boring for me as it is for you, probably much more so.  I wish I’d had this ability in Iraq four years ago though.

Out to the Admin Soldier Readiness Processing, they got my pay started – so that was worthwhile.  Everything else was just having them check off on forms and lists to say I’d done what I was supposed to do.  Then to CIF to get our Rapid Fielding Initiative items.  I was told before hand that I wouldn’t be issued any and now I’m told I am to be issued everything, MOLLE pack, sleep system, etc. etc.   But it’s all optional so I’ll just take the non-recoverable items and a new ACH helmet and leave the rest (Oh, and the extreme cold weather kit, it’s pretty neat and the long johns are keepers).  Back to CRC and wait for five hours so we can go to an office where they will check once more to ensure we did the mandatory training that they checked the first day and had us sign a list about the second day.   Continuing to have fun, well maybe not.