Update
Alright race fans, I'm back. My wife and I just got back from a cruise to Catalina Island and Ensenada Mexico. It was great, the first cruise we've ever been on. My Mom flew out to stay with our kids while we were gone. So here's the update on how I got out of the Army.
We landed in Louisiana a few days before Hurricane Rita hit. The knuckleheads that were outprocessing us decided not to make any decisions until right before the Hurricane hit. It was like they've never even heard of hurricanes in Louisiana before. So the evening the Hurricane was supposed to hit, right after they shut down all the airports, they evacuated Fort Polk. Well they evacuated everyone that didn't need an airplane. That left about 20 of us. We were living in a building on the top of a hill right until they all left. For some reason they thought it would be a much better idea to move us all into a metal building at the very bottom of a big hill. I assume it was so all the bodies could be easily found if we were all killed, or if it flooded we would be sure to wash away and then they wouldn't have to deal with us at all. When we asked about food and water they said, "Here's a pallet of MRE's and water, have fun." And then they left. We had no electricity, no communications, nothing. We just sat in the wind and rain and pitch black darkness and sweated our patooties off waiting to either be killed or for the storm to pass. Eventually it passed. While all of this was happening they had the whole Brigade except the out of state guys like me on pass. We had to stay in the stupid hurricane barracks and pine our lives away waiting for them to make up a new plan to outprocess while they were all at home with their families. They would put everyone on pass until the next Monday and they were supposed to come up with a plan so we could start outprocessing on that Monday. Instead they didn't do anything and then everyone would report back late Sunday night and form up in formation early Monday morning. Then the "Leadership" would come out and say something like, "Well, we have too many people here to outprocess so we'll put you all on pass again until next Monday. This happened twice and they still hadn't come up with a plan. So this whole time we would just sit there and wait for the next Monday to come to see if we could outprocess. Then the next Monday would come and we would do it all again. Finally they got a plan and said they would outprocess all the local guys so they could get home first and then they would take care of anyone who wasn't actually part of the Brigade like the IRR guys. Mind you these were the guys that had been on pass at their houses with their families for almost three weeks. We were the guys that were sitting with no electricity swatting mosquitoes and not seeing our families. At this point we had had it. One of the guys called his congressman and I call St. Louis and talked to the people that had recalled us. I asked them if we could go somewhere else to outprocess and they said no. It turns out that the IRR recall was such a failure that they actually closed down all the processing sites. After people started hearing that they didn't do anything to you if you didn't show up they decided to just stop the whole thing. Well, they couldn't do anything for us but somehow or another the Pentagon caught wind of it and called that evening. The instructions were very specific. "Take all the IRR guys and outprocess them tomorrow morning no questions asked!" Low and behold we were outprocessed and home in about three days. Bada Boom Bada Bing.
So there it is in a nut shell. I'll finish the game show in a few days. Life is getting back to normal around here and I'm looking forward to living a normal life again.
We landed in Louisiana a few days before Hurricane Rita hit. The knuckleheads that were outprocessing us decided not to make any decisions until right before the Hurricane hit. It was like they've never even heard of hurricanes in Louisiana before. So the evening the Hurricane was supposed to hit, right after they shut down all the airports, they evacuated Fort Polk. Well they evacuated everyone that didn't need an airplane. That left about 20 of us. We were living in a building on the top of a hill right until they all left. For some reason they thought it would be a much better idea to move us all into a metal building at the very bottom of a big hill. I assume it was so all the bodies could be easily found if we were all killed, or if it flooded we would be sure to wash away and then they wouldn't have to deal with us at all. When we asked about food and water they said, "Here's a pallet of MRE's and water, have fun." And then they left. We had no electricity, no communications, nothing. We just sat in the wind and rain and pitch black darkness and sweated our patooties off waiting to either be killed or for the storm to pass. Eventually it passed. While all of this was happening they had the whole Brigade except the out of state guys like me on pass. We had to stay in the stupid hurricane barracks and pine our lives away waiting for them to make up a new plan to outprocess while they were all at home with their families. They would put everyone on pass until the next Monday and they were supposed to come up with a plan so we could start outprocessing on that Monday. Instead they didn't do anything and then everyone would report back late Sunday night and form up in formation early Monday morning. Then the "Leadership" would come out and say something like, "Well, we have too many people here to outprocess so we'll put you all on pass again until next Monday. This happened twice and they still hadn't come up with a plan. So this whole time we would just sit there and wait for the next Monday to come to see if we could outprocess. Then the next Monday would come and we would do it all again. Finally they got a plan and said they would outprocess all the local guys so they could get home first and then they would take care of anyone who wasn't actually part of the Brigade like the IRR guys. Mind you these were the guys that had been on pass at their houses with their families for almost three weeks. We were the guys that were sitting with no electricity swatting mosquitoes and not seeing our families. At this point we had had it. One of the guys called his congressman and I call St. Louis and talked to the people that had recalled us. I asked them if we could go somewhere else to outprocess and they said no. It turns out that the IRR recall was such a failure that they actually closed down all the processing sites. After people started hearing that they didn't do anything to you if you didn't show up they decided to just stop the whole thing. Well, they couldn't do anything for us but somehow or another the Pentagon caught wind of it and called that evening. The instructions were very specific. "Take all the IRR guys and outprocess them tomorrow morning no questions asked!" Low and behold we were outprocessed and home in about three days. Bada Boom Bada Bing.
So there it is in a nut shell. I'll finish the game show in a few days. Life is getting back to normal around here and I'm looking forward to living a normal life again.
posted by GWM at 3:29 PM
8 Comments:
It's Tuesday, no one else has posted a comment yet, so I wanted to make sure I did. Just to let you know people are still reading it and looking forward to the game show finale. It's so great to have you back home where you belong! scm
Normal life, HA!
I'm truly sorry you IRR guys who did in fact 'show up' were treated so shabbily at the tail end of your deployment, hurricane or no hurricane. I'm glad the Pentagon stepped in finally to get things in gear for you. Thank YOU for your service(and some of the no-question funniest posts I've read in the last 6 months of keeping up with the milblogs since a friend deployed to Iraq.) You all deserve much better from us here at home.
with respect,
Hey! Did you hear that the Reed Thanksgiving Dinner is at the Bontragers this year? Your family is invited! Last Thurs. when our grandson, Gavin was with us, and we were talking about Thanksgiving Dinner. Gavin said, "I WANT TO SEE GARTH!"
Glad to hear you had a nice cruise. I heard your Mom had come out to watch the kids. I seen your Grandma Miller last Sunday.
Glad you're with your family,
Cousins P & M
I'm an IRR call-up who is approaching the end of his deployment. We had an NCO IRR person leave earlier this month and she reported that the Army is forcing many IRR guys now to stay the enrire 545 days on their mob orders. So, after showing up, enduring a 12 month deployment, many are still being "retained" based on branch/MOS needs. I was just wondering if you saw anything like this occuring during your demob. Because, atleast now, the Army has placed a lot of red tape around getting back out. I will need my orders REFRAD'ed by an 06 in my theater of operation; otherwise, I will spend another 4 months at some random state-side unit in a BN S-2.
I am an IRR call up. I was wondering if the IRR guys were given free leave? For some reason my LES says I have 45 use or lose days. Do you know anything about this?
Good luck in the real world man. One of these days Ill get to do the same. IRR recall sucks. Did you hear about the stop loss extra $500 a month? I call bullshit on that because we dont get squat. GO ARMY!
I'm glad the Pentagon stepped in finally to get things in gear for you
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