Hurry Up And Wait!
It took forever to fall asleep last night -- between the noisy air conditioner and people letting the door to the building slam on their way in and out all night. I decided to take a shower to relax and found what I had feared -- open bay showers. No privacy for us more Victorian-types. It's been years since I found myself having to shower with other women. I had hoped that the Army had come a little farther than that in 23 years! Overall the rooms and bathrooms are horrible -- probably WWII vintage and barely serviceable. This is amazing considering that this is one of two CONUS Replacement Centers in the US and hundreds of people pass through here on their way overseas and back home.
The shower helped wash away the day, but 4:30 a.m. came painfully early. I dressed quickly and headed for the mess hall for coffee and french toast. I had time to relax with some water and CNN before heading over to formation.
Most people got to head over to medical processing right from the formation, but about 30 of us were left to complete paperwork that we were unable to do yesterday because we arrived too late. Standing in formation appeared to be a waste of time.
By the time we got to the medical processing facility it was filled past capacity and we were forced to wait almost two hours to begin going through the stations. Lunch was brought to the curb of the parking lot and we sat in the hot, steamy sun picking at meat loaf, mashed potatoes and gravey.
I finished the main medical processing stations around 1:30 p.m. but was referred to the main hospital for additional evaluation. I finally finished around 3 p.m. and called for the shuttle. After an hour and four phone calls, I managed to catch a ride with the shuttle from another unit and got back to my unit around 4:30 p.m. -- hot and mad has a hornet. As a result of the inability of the system to work, I'm now behind and will have to try to make up lost time tomorrow.
I found out today that I could request nondeployment for medical reasons, and because I've got 20 years in, I should be allowed to retire. However, there seems to be some confusion over how that would be accomplished. There seems to be some new rule that will not allow them to send me back to my unit to either continue working or to process for retirement, and to initiate a medical board here would take six months. The bottom line advice I got was to just suck it up and deploy.
In the meantime my roommate was determined to be nondeployable for medical reasons and is being sent home to process for retirement. Hmmmm..... It's no surprise that if you ask 10 people the same question, you'll get 10 different answers. As the briefers said yesterday, the Army isn't efficient, but it's effective.
I'm hoping to catch the shuttle to the Post Exchange tonight for a little distraction for this dreery compound.
The shower helped wash away the day, but 4:30 a.m. came painfully early. I dressed quickly and headed for the mess hall for coffee and french toast. I had time to relax with some water and CNN before heading over to formation.
Most people got to head over to medical processing right from the formation, but about 30 of us were left to complete paperwork that we were unable to do yesterday because we arrived too late. Standing in formation appeared to be a waste of time.
By the time we got to the medical processing facility it was filled past capacity and we were forced to wait almost two hours to begin going through the stations. Lunch was brought to the curb of the parking lot and we sat in the hot, steamy sun picking at meat loaf, mashed potatoes and gravey.
I finished the main medical processing stations around 1:30 p.m. but was referred to the main hospital for additional evaluation. I finally finished around 3 p.m. and called for the shuttle. After an hour and four phone calls, I managed to catch a ride with the shuttle from another unit and got back to my unit around 4:30 p.m. -- hot and mad has a hornet. As a result of the inability of the system to work, I'm now behind and will have to try to make up lost time tomorrow.
I found out today that I could request nondeployment for medical reasons, and because I've got 20 years in, I should be allowed to retire. However, there seems to be some confusion over how that would be accomplished. There seems to be some new rule that will not allow them to send me back to my unit to either continue working or to process for retirement, and to initiate a medical board here would take six months. The bottom line advice I got was to just suck it up and deploy.
In the meantime my roommate was determined to be nondeployable for medical reasons and is being sent home to process for retirement. Hmmmm..... It's no surprise that if you ask 10 people the same question, you'll get 10 different answers. As the briefers said yesterday, the Army isn't efficient, but it's effective.
I'm hoping to catch the shuttle to the Post Exchange tonight for a little distraction for this dreery compound.
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