Deirdre's Blog

Yesterday I worked at the SRP most of the day while contractors came through.  They only can get a fill-in-the-blanks power of attorney from us unless they are retired military.  Today we had military and gov’t civilians and there were a lot of IRR guys who needed a lot of things done.  I  worked the SRP for about 12 hours and I prepared about 14 wills and had several consults, most of which involved military regulations that I’d never dealt with before.  Some guys wanted to know about medical issues, others about getting married before they leave the country, one had questions about his citizenship application.

The office asked me if I wanted them to request my reassignment to Ft. Benning.  At first I said no, this is fun but it’s no Germany.  But then, I got copied on an e-mail this evening that said that I might be “facing . . . return to home station” which means they’d send me home and take me off active duty – over an accounting code.  This is dumbness beyond dumbness, because some numbers are misplaced they might not just have a delay in fixing it, they may have to admit defeat – Whiskey Tango Foxtrot – Over.  If you want to defeat the American’s start a war and then screw up some accounting lines, they won’t be able to move the troops.  I just don’t believe this, it’s beyond all of my wildest imaginings of stupid and I’ve been dealing with the Army since 1987 – believe me, I’ve seen some pretty dumb stuff.

Tonight I was also baffled to see that a friend, Jihad Muhaisen, who is an attorney in Denver, can’t use his real name on Facebook, even though there are multiple accounts for most modern dicators, such as Pol Pot, Roberto Mugabe, and Saddam Hussain (even though he’s dead).  I discovered this because one of my friends on Facebook lists one of the Saddam accounts among his “friends”.  I won’t mention that he actually knew the real Saddam or I’ll start some conspiracy theories going about whether Saddam is actually dead.  Shhh!

Last night began the third week of my stay at Ft. Benning.  Yesterday I went to the PX and sat in Starbucks reading Cormac Cullinans’s Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice through to the end.  I had gotten to a dry part in the book last Spring and set the book down, only picking it up again this Winter.  It was a very good book, the first two thirds were paradigm shattering.  The last third dragged a bit, but I’ll still read the book again, it was that good.  I will be discussing the ideas in the book here further.  Last night I paid for a day of internet service so I could get on to Facebook and also so I could work online without having to log off every thirty minutes and get back in line.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that I’m working from a MacBook that I bought in November.  It’s my first Mac and I love it.  Interestingly, I’ve seen about a dozen laptops here since I arrived, mostly owned by officers, and all but one were MacBooks.  I find that particularly interesting, since most everything the Army has in its offices runs on Windows XP (I haven’t seen an Army computer running Vista yet, Dieu merci!).

Today more boring than most to describe, since I’ve spent most of it on this computer thingy.

So, yesterday (2009.1.8) I worked all day at the OSJA and saw one legal assistance client among other things.   I love it, it isn’t rocket science but you do have to dig into the weeds of the regulations looking for a way out for your client.  Everyone is friendly and many of them I went to Officer Basic with, so it’s kind of like a club.  No one is trying bill more than you and there is no pressure to get more work when there is none, just get it done when there is.  I can take ten minutes or all day, whatever it requires and country pays the bill.  Closed system communism works wonderfully.  We write letters on behalf of soldiers to opposes actions that the attorneys across the hall are helping the commanders with and when the day is over we can all go have a beer together and leave the office at the office.  There is a lot of griping about stupid commanders (stupid soldiers are a given and don’t rate mentioning), but that usually happens in the halls of the office before the day is out.  Last night a bunch of us went out to watch the game and although there was plenty of discussion of where everyone has worked before and his or her complete military history; cases, clients, and work in general were not discussed.

The deputy, sort of like the managing partner, has seen me several times but I don’t know if she has any idea who I am yet.  She looks kind of puzzled whenever she sees me, especially when she walked in to my office today expecting it to be empty.  I was on the phone to Headquarters Department of the Army, so I couldn’t explain anything.  I watched all of my RA (Regular Army) classmates get promoted to Captain yesterday, we thought this was going to happen earlier in the week, but the office delayed it in order to have all the attorneys present.  I got to talk to the SJA (Staff Judge Advocate – Senior partner equivalent) for a bit, so he now knows who I am.

Anyway, so today, before I headed down to main post, I checked in on the USAREUR LNO again.  She wasn’t in.  I mentioned that she didn’t get in until 1130 the other day and asked if that was normal.  I was told yes, that she works late due to the time difference with Europe.  I nodded my head but didn’t say what I was thinking: Europe is ahead of us.  At 1130 EST it is 1730 Central European Time.  Combine that with the fact that in my group there were a total of three service members going to Europe out of about 400 going through the CRC:  Now that’s the job I want!  She should be the USARPAC LNO.  This place doesn’t just have the smoke, it’s got the mirrors to boot.

Today for the first time I saw the e-mail thread in which Benning says quite clearly “we won’t ship without these accounting codes and he shouldn’t have ever shipped from Maine” and HRC Saint Louis says “we aren’t adding those accounting codes because they aren’t needed, stop bothering us”.  Part of the problem appears to be that everyone is questioning why I was sent through the CRC at all.  OTJAG grabbed ahold of that and said they’re requesting a “do over” (they actually used that phrase).  Recind the orders and simply make my orders for a straight PCS to Germany (with TDY in route to Benning not because I need to be here but because I am in fact here).

So, at least the Lawyers are winning the logic battle but so far no one is listening:

Benning: The accounting line is wrong, HRC St. Louis must fix it
HRC Saint Louis: There’s no problem with the accounting line and we aren’t going to change it
OTJAG: Actually, we’d like to send him to Germany

So, I did some research for the Chief of Legal Assistance, CPT Dean, while I waited around for the USAREUR LNO (US Army Europe Liason Officer) to show up in her office.  She got in about 11:30, I was waiting for her, and she says, “I want you to know I haven’t forgotten about you, I’ve been working on getting you out of here”.  Somehow, showing up at 11:30 doesn’t inspire confidence.  She then proceeds to call the people at HRC St. Louis who it sounds from the conversation (I am in the room at this time) haven’t heard about this problem yet.  She showed my orders to the transportation person again and now says Maine should never have cut me a ticket to come down here.

After this I took a shuttle to main post and filled in the good Captain on my research.  I asked him for more work and he gave me an office and a computer.  I figure the more I settle in the more likely they are to get things figured out and get me a ticket on very short notice, so my bags are all packed and ready to fly.  I’m going to the office tomorrow with the intention of a regular work day.

If this doesn’t work I’ll have to try to get a walk-on to airborne school, since that isn’t possible it will most certainly result in me being shipped.

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).