Well, another day another dollar, I guess. Today marked the first day of the whole processing to go to Afghanistan bit. And to be honest, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Which isn’t to say that it wasn’t bad, because it was. There’s seldom anything that the Navy has its grimy meathooks in that isn’t in some way, shape, or form spoiled rotten. Anyway, here’s a blow by blow analysis of what happened today… in a nutshelled format.
I woke up at 6:30 AM and headed out toward NOB. When I got there, I saw a throng of people walking down the main street on the base toward my ultimate destination. I had a hunch that they were going where I was going, but I didn’t know for sure. Nor did I really care, for that matter.
Anyway, I got to the parking lot and parked in a relatively safe spot, and then headed back to the building I was headed to: J-50, or Nimitz Hall. And sure enough, there was that massive group, all funneling into the building. So, I did my best to pace myself to get there at the end of the line, as there was quite a bit of khaki in there, and I didn’t feel too particularly… salutary. That goal being reached, I got inside, flashed my CAC to the guy at the door, and then proceeded to get horribly lost. Fortunately, I wasn’t alone in this, and was—indirectly—pointed in the right direction.
So I headed down to the other end of the building via the middle of it, and climbed up to the second floor, where I heard some female saying, “Make sure you have your medical and dental records out for this.”
Great.
Of course, this was only a problem because Dental saw fit to not want to surrender my record the previous Friday. The reasoning for this was because they didn’t want to give me less than I needed… while at the same time apparently not wanting to give me any more than I needed, either.
No matter, though. I managed to get checked in just fine and, to my surprise, they were actually expecting me today.
I say “to my surprise” because throughout the entire course of this li’l IA gem, I’d been given three different sets of orders, each one telling me to be somewhere different at a different point in time.
But as I said, I had no problem getting checked in and… well, seated was a bit of an issue here for a moment or two. You see, they had us separated into different processing groups, split this way for an easier job on their end, and I guess through that, on ours as well. So I was assigned to “foxtrot”, and when I went up front to where I was supposed to sit, I found the entire row of seats taken.
At that point, a female took the center stage and announced the basic itinerary of the day, and that if anyone needed pens or anything, that she had some available. “Do you need something?” she asked me with a hint of annoyance in her voice. “Well actually yeah,” I replied, “A seat would be nice.” She sighed in exasperation, and pointed out a seat that had been stealthed in between two officers. I took a pen, and then I took my seat.
It was at this time that I started realizing that not everyone had showed up in the specified uniform of the day: dress blues. As a matter of fact, most people had showed up in their regular working uniforms, these being the winter blues and more comfortable utilities. At that point, I decided that I’d follow suit on the remaining days in the processing week.
So as not to bore you all with the rest of the day—and because I’m actually quite bored and agitated with it myself—I’ll just go ahead and summarize.
I ran into a coworker who’d been reassigned about a year ago. He’s going to Kuwait.
I got fitted for my uniforms, which I’ll receive on Friday.
I had my medical record screened, and despite the fact that it’s the one thing I’d been taking care of in the past couple of weeks, they found a few things to get me on. Needless to say, I had no problem finding proof of the contrary right when I opened the damn folder. It’s as easy as reading a book, really, and they failed horribly. Hooked on phonics, folks. Hooked on phonics.
Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised at 11:00 AM when they cut the active duty guys loose for lunch while retaining the reserve guys to cover stuff that only applied to the reserve guys. For those of you who don’t know the Navy, lemme break it down for you: the Navy has a distinct problem with forcing people to sit through training that they’ve either been through before, or doesn’t apply to them at all. Case in point: I know what to do in the event that I’m separated from my spouse.
Which I don’t have.
But yeah, they cut us loose, and I went to lunch with the guy I mentioned earlier. Caught up on some things, and realized that not a whole lot changed in his life… certainly less than what changed in mine, which also wasn’t very much. Came back, and instantly realized that in the Navy, karma (or some twisted version thereof) is instant.
Because for the hour that we got out of training that didn’t matter at all to us, we got kept back in the building for three more hours as they finished reviewing our medical records.
Of course, what made this worse was the fact that at 9:30 AM, the female in charge of the processing site overall told us that the day was half over.
Let’s look at this logically.
If we showed up at the site at 7:30 AM for check-in and whatnot, and we were “halfway through the day” at 9:30 AM, that meant that we only had two hours left before we were cut loose.
In the end, we were finally released at 4:30 PM.
Yes, folks, this is why I love the Navy. Nothing is as it should be, or is claimed to be. It’s inconsistent, constantly tests your patience, and is overall just… well, the Navy.
I’d expected to go into the building today and leave with answers to my questions. Most importantly, of course, was where exactly I was gonna be going, and what I was going to be doing. Alas, my Noble Eagle number (a special designation for IA orders) wasn’t mentioned, and the representative from the ECRC (sorry for all the acronyms, by the way) didn’t want to go into what mine was… or anyone else’s that weren’t mentioned.
But, I can’t say that I didn’t learn anything, as that’d be a blatant lie. No, I learned that our trip to South Carolina is only gonna be three weeks long as opposed to the two months I’d been told by others.
Anyway, that was basically my entire day right there. I was gonna go to dental and try to pick up my records once more, but by the time I got done with sitting through the drive-thru at Navy Federal for my rent check this month, it was already 5:30 PM, and I’m pretty sure dental doesn’t stick around that long. So I just went back to the apartment, dropped off the rent, and then chilled for the evening. Took care of a couple other chores, but yeah… everything here is more or less the only stuff of any real consequence.
No comments:
Post a Comment