Army related news

I haven't talked about my husband being in the Army for awhile now.

The hubby was active duty Army, then Army Reserves, and now he is in the Illinois National Guard.

One weekend a month, he packs up his gear and leaves.  We live about 70 miles away from where he does his drill.  More often than not, he spends the night.  He is usually gone from 6:00 Saturday morning until 6:00 Sunday evening.

A couple of months ago, he signed a new contract.  A three year extension.  As of now, he has a commitment until July of 2016.  Around the same time, he was also promoted.  He is now a Sergeant. 

This all means a couple of things for us.

First of all, he will have a 10 + year (actually 12) commitment to the Army.  When you have a commitment of over 10 years, you can transfer your GI bill (the thing that pays for him to go to school).  From what I understand, he can't transfer it to Aubri because he already starting using it and it has to be used within 9 years from the time he started using it.  So, basically, we are going to try to transfer it to me.  If my school is paid for, I will go as long as I can.  Matt has done a great job with school and has one class left.  I'm super proud of him for going.  

Also, because of his promotion, he will have to go to WLC.  That stands for Warrior Leader Course.  I'm not sure how much of the details I can share.  But, what I can share is that it is a couple states away.  He will be gone for two and a half weeks.  And it's coming up soon.  

When I think about him leaving for two weeks, I get a little nervous.  Aubri has went from a perfect little angel that likes to sit on a blanket and play quietly to almost a toddler that likes to roam, yell, and get into things.  Taking care of her has become a two person operation.

But, then I remind myself, it's only two weeks and a half week.  I can totally do it. 

He should be able to text me and call me everyday.  We can probably even Facetime.  It's two weeks, not 15 months, or a year, or 9 months.  We will all be fine.  

The thought of him leaving is a big reminder.  A reminder that it could be a lot worse and it is a lot worse for some people.  Having him home with us every night is something I try to not take for granted.  I will never forget what it was like when he was deployed.  But, I think we both grew a lot when he was gone and looking back, I'd do it all over again.

Aubri and I will miss you!

Back from Vacation

Last week was just what I needed.  

Monday and Tuesday I lounged around, cleaned the house, took some naps, and threw some stuff away.  I always feel better when I de-clutter.  

Wednesday, Matt and I had to go to his old Reserves Unit and get some paperwork.  Vinnie stayed there with his Sergeant First Class (she's been asking for a year to see him) while we went to re-enroll in DEERS and get our new ID cards.  When we got back to pick up Vinnie, he was riding on a forklift with her.  It was so cute.  He promoted from Private Pup to Sergeant First Class Pup in one day.

We also had to drop my laptop off at the Best Buy.  The port dealy where the plug in majigger goes is loose.  So sometimes when I try to charge it I have to wrap the cord around the monitor.  Hopefully, it's covered under the extended warranty that we purchased.  It's not like Vinnie got tangled up in the cord when he was just a little feller and it fell on the floor or anything.  Or maybe that did happen once.

On the way home, Matt and I went to a campground.  My dad pulled his and mom's camper up and my mom and I stayed there alone Wednesday night.  With no pups or husbands.  It was nice.  We really roughed it.  Mom brought a couple subway sammys.

Thursday evening Matt brought our camper and the pups up.  And my dad and a friend of my parents joined us on Friday.  We stayed until Sunday morning. 

From Wednesday to Sunday morning, I took around 5 naps.  We also went to the beach for awhile.  Did a little hiking until I fell and busted my ass.  Ate more than we should have.  Had a few adult beverages.

All in all, it was just what I needed.

Monday, I had to come back to work.  It actually felt good to be back.

School starts next week and I already dropped one class.  Mostly because I have to use Matt's old Floppy McFlopperson computer right now.  No need to finish it all up too quickly.  I mean I'm only 30. 

Thanks again to both of my wonderful guest bloggers.  And thank you all for you thoughts, prayers, good vibes, and support over the last couple of weeks.

And a big "Hello" to all of my new followers.  Leave me a comment so I can come check your blogs out too.

Reenlistment

He did it.  Or we did it.  Or something.  Matt reenlisted with the Illinois National Guard.  It was a mutual decision.  

His Reserves contract ended July 13th.  This evening he signed a two year contract with the National Guard.  

His new unit will be in the same town as his Reserves unit was.  But he's hoping to actually get to do his job, which is re-fueling helicopters.  His National Guard unit is an aviation unit so hopefully he will get to do what he likes to do.

99% of our reasoning for the reenlistment was for health insurance.  Yes, either one of us could get health insurance for both of us at our job.  But, it's expensive and practically worthless.  And we'd like to have a family sometime in the next two years.

I guess what worries me the most is he had to sign up for two years.  Originally, he was going to sign a one year extension and then almost certainly wouldn't have had to deploy.  Now he could have to deploy in the next year. 

That's not what I want but things would be different if he deployed again versus last time.  Last time we were not married, so I could not take care of all the things he wanted me to take care of for him.  And he was gone for 15 months.  We missed my birthday and a couple other holidays twice.  This time, it would not be for more than 12 months and we are married, settled down, have a house, ect.

It was something we both put a lot of thought into and what we thought was best for us and our future.

Award

Over the last week or so I was award the "Most Valuable Milspouse Award". I received this award from Ashley @ Daydreams and Dog Tags, McDancer @ McDancing Through Life, and AngieDMac @ Oh, How Delightful!

Thank you ladies! This one means more than the average award to me. At one time, I was pretty much a superstar milspouse. Now that my husband is in the Reserves, I'm only really a milspouse one weekend a month. (Please no debates about this here. I'm speaking from my experience and not making a generalization.)

I know my husband will not and cannot be deployed. Yes, we have survived a 15 month deployment and have still spent more of our relationship apart than together. I still feel thankful that we have the experience of the deployment and being apart under our belts. We both learned and grew from it. But, by no means do I sacrifice as much as many of you do anymore. Thank you all!

So, with that being said, I'd like to pass this one along to:

Jessica @ {Mis} Adventure of an Army Wife

Beka @ A Personal Look Into My Life As A GI Joe's Wife

Brittney @ A Day In The Life Of A Navy Wife

Don't forget to enter my giveaway!

Auxiliary and such

I was going to give you a weekend recap but honestly I can't even remember what the heck we did. *Thinking* Oh ok, I took Vinnie to see Santa. And Saturday night we had the hubby's work Christmas party. So we now have 1 of around 10 parties under our belt. It was a descent time. They hand out $100 bills so that's always good.

Monday evening Matt had class and I went to my first VFW Ladies Auxiliary Meeting. I joined a couple of months ago but haven't been able to attend a meeting until now. Okay, that's a lie. I haven't had the motivation to go to a meeting until now. Matt joined the VFW around April ish and I joined the Auxiliary around October.

It wasn't too bad. Our Auxiliary has Sunday lunches once in awhile and I will help with those. I definitely think they need, how do I put this, some younger, fresher opinions. Besides one lady, I was the youngest one there by around 40 years.

What I am getting at here is that WE need to join or the Auxiliary will be no more. Also, our husbands need to join the VFW or the VFW will be no more.

By we and our I mean all of my readers who are the spouse, sister, daughter, or granddaughter of someone who has served in a foreign war. The VFW does lot of things for Vets and many other organizations. I also know for a fact that the older member get a kick out of seeing younger people like Matt and I at their meetings.

It cost me $20 for a year membership. Next year, I will sign up for a lifetime membership and I believe it is around $200. They also have scholarship opportunities for members and it looks great on a resume.

So, if you get a chance, look into it.

Oh and Matt found out Monday night that he got a 97% on his test last week! Best grade in the class. I'm super proud of him.

Happy Wednesday!

Excuse me?

In case you don't know, my husband always has these crazy ideas running around through his head. The other night he thought, it be cool if we got an old school Chevy Beretta to save on miles on the truck. You see, the hubby and I each had a Beretta in high school. That was many moons ago and we were just friends. We even traded Berettas once for a day or so.

So, Matt's on his computer googling away looking for a Beretta. Although, he and I both knew there was absolutely no way we were getting one. Well I knew. He should have known.

He found one in the town he does drill in. To see all the info about the car you have to give them your email address and phone number. He did. He also put that it would be best to be contacted by email.

The next day he starts getting text messages from some asswipe at the dealership. They text back and forth. I guess Matt told him that he would be in this town for drill over the weekend. Matt said he wouldn't pay more than $1000 for it. The guy said there was no way that they could sell it for that price. Matt politely told him sorry we couldn't make a deal.

Then over the weekend while Matt was at drill, the asswipe starts texting him again. From what I gather, Matt was nice at first and again told him sorry that they couldn't make a deal. The guy keeps texting him. Matt told him, "Times must be tough if you are blowing up someone's phone over a $1500 car that's junk." (Apparently Matt drove by and looked at it and it was junk.)

The asswipe texts him back and says, "Times must be tough when you have to be 10% of a soldier."

At first Matt wanted to go find this asswipe and kick his ass. But he always calms down fairly easy. By the time he told me about it, he was over it.

This really pissed me off. Yes, my husband is in the Reserves now. But he is 5 times the soldier of anyone in his new unit. We won't even go there. He was deployed for 15 months and we were apart the first 9 months that we were married. He's made plenty of sacrifices. He's received more awards and ribbons than I can fit on scholarship, auxiliary, ect. applications. He did his thing. Now we are trying to move on. For someone to try to belittle my husband like that really gets under my skin.

I was going to call the dealership and talk to some kind of manager and tell them what went down. Matt told me not to. I call anyway and got the sales managers voice mail. I didn't leave a message and I didn't call back. I bought a car at this dealership before but I will NEVER buy another one there.

What do you think?

Deployment Survivor

My bloggy buddy Amber at Goodnight moon has this great idea to do a link up for survivors of having their spouse deployed.

Matt and I had been friends forever before we started dating. When we first started talking, I knew that he was going to be deploying within the next year. Mentally I had to make a decision if I was prepared to handle it before we even started dating. Of course I decided he was worth it. Before he deployed, I took a leave of absence from work and drove out to Seattle from IL and stayed with him for six weeks. We had a great time and did lots of fun things in those six weeks.

D-day June 2007

He left at noon on June 10th. I'll never forget those buses that took him away. After he left, I had to pull myself together to drive back to IL. When I got back I worked at my office job and also a shit job. I worked between 50-70 hours a week. I paid off all my bills. I sent Matt care packages at least every other week. According to whoever check his mail, he got the best care packages of anyone in his unit.

His R & R was in November and we got engaged. R & R was bittersweet. We had a great time together but I knew I had to say good-bye again. By this time, he had already lost one of his best friends.

After R & R, he had another 10 months of deployment left. He was deployed for a total of 14 and a half months. We missed every holiday while he was deployed, some twice.

We didn't have the best communication while he was deployed. He emailed me most days but rarely called. He would go to an outpost that didn't have phones or internet for 3-4 weeks at a time. He did this 3 or 4 times. So that's 9-16 weeks where we had zero communication. There was no Skype. If there was we didn't know about it. We did do yahoo messaging with webcams but it would always disconnect and one of us would get fed up with it.

I like to think while he was deployed I was strong. Yeah, I'd lose it sometimes. I was grouchy at my shit job but hey it was a shitty job. I didn't whine about him being gone or complain about all the things we were missing. I might have thought it but I didn't whine about it. I held my head up high and tried to remember that most people couldn't do it.

The day he came home was the best day of my life. It was better than our wedding. Words can not describe the feeling of knowing he was safe, I was back in his arms, and that we had done it.

Homecoming August 2008

I've been thinking a lot about those who will never get to experience this feeling. The family of his friend that died and wives who lost their husbands will never know how great this felt. It breaks my heart.

We got married two weeks after the deployment was over. In some ways I'm thankful that we got to go through this. It's made us closer. And he understands that I will always be there for him.

Busy, busy

It's been a couple days since I've wrote anything so I thought I'd give you all an update. I've been busy. Like real busy. Matt left Friday for his two week AT. So, instead of sitting around pissing and moaning about how much I miss him, I've been doing stuff.

The boys miss him like crazy. The first night, I don't think they slept at all. They were constantly barking and getting up and wondering around. Yeah, I miss him but I actually haven't had time to miss him that much. Besides, 13 days apart is nothing compared to 438.

Here's what I've got done since Friday after work:

Cleaned both ceiling fans
Dusted
Cleaned out my cedar chest - I threw a bunch of crap away, which always makes me feel good.
Cleaned the stove top really good
Scrubbed the shower at 2 in the morning
Changed the pool filter and added chlorine
Pulled weeds and watered bushes - and then it rained
Got my oil changed
Took cans in to be recycled
Bought and changed the handles on the laundry room cabinets
Cleaned the office and threw some stuff away
Straightened up the hall closet
Scrubbed the front door
Washed sheets and blankets
Cleaned window sills
Cleaned kitchen closet
Cleaned laundry hamper
Cleaned all mirrors
Cleaned kitchen chairs
Cleaned all TVs
A ton of homework - I want to be done with my online class before he gets back.
Washed Matt's nasty jeans that have been in the garage for months
I also worked two shifts at the bar over the weekend.

Here's whats still on my list to do:

Scrub the green shit off the patio furniture
Clean all baseboards
Clean all hardwood floors
Clean cabinets inside and out - I'm about half done with this.
Clean fridge inside and out
Get rings cleaned and inspected
Buy, paint, and hang sconces
Go shopping (hehe)
Vacuum
Clean both bathrooms
Wash bed skirt
Clean spare bedroom
Straighten up bathroom closet
Buy green pillows
Clean leather furniture
Patio doors
Clean off deck
Clean camper
Wash all rugs
Attempt to clean garage

Today Matt has been gone....4 days. I need to pace myself or I'm going to run out of stuff to do. ;) Last night I put the trash out. This morning it was still there. I put it out a day early. I guess that's better than a day late.

Hope you are all having a great week!

Military Spouse Appreciation Day

I have posted this before but I want to post it again for my new followers. This is an essay I wrote for school. Happy Military Spouse Appreciation Day!

The Military Wife of Today

There have been many groups of women throughout the history of America that have helped to make this nation the land of the free and the home of the brave. Perhaps, the most overlooked group of influential women throughout the history of our nation has been military wives. As long as there has been military in our country there have been military wives. The military wife of today may have conveniences that make her role easier than ever before however, this does not make her life any more desirable. A military wife must be strong, patient, understanding, and loyal to her husband and her country. She will stop at nothing to make sure her husband is as comfortable and as happy as possible, even when he is thousands of miles away.

In the military, it is not the service member’s choice where they will be stationed or even if they will stay at that duty station throughout their career. A military wife will pack up all she owns to move to a place far away from her friends and family to be with her husband and will possibly do this several times. She will give up everything she knows to spend time with him. Or she will stay at home and wait for him if that is what they believe is best. She will patiently look forward to his return and never question her reasons for entering into such a marriage. Either way, she will do it whatever is best for her family’s future and do it with a smile. She understands that he has to do what he his told and she will never complain about it.

A military wife will deal with her husband’s deployment as a strong brave woman. She will stand next to him, smile, and take pictures with him on the day he leaves. She will never have felt as proud of him than on that day. She will soon fall apart and pick her self up again, repeatedly. A military wife will put her own needs aside to make sure that the package she is sending him makes it to the post office “today”. She will send a package on every birthday, holiday, and two or three between. She will become a professional at packing the comforts of home into an 11-inch by 8.5-inch by 5.5-inch box. She could also pack a bowling ball into the same box if her husband asked her to. The clerk at the post office becomes a friend rather than a stranger due her constantly picking up boxes and dropping off packages.

During deployment a military wife will also check her e-mail between ten and a hundred times a day, just to see if her husband has had time to send her a short message. He usually works between twelve and fifteen hours a day, in a desert and she understands when he doesn’t have time, but she continuously checks anyways. She will sleep with her phone by her side her every night. When a twelve-digit number is calling her phone at four in the morning she does not hesitate to answer because she knows it is her husband calling. She doesn’t get upset when after five minutes on the phone with him the call is disconnected. It can happen repeatedly and she is just happy to have heard his voice and know that he is alive and well.

While he is away a military wife will not hesitate to take over all shared responsibilities. She will mother, cook, clean, do the accounting, and take care of the cars, the lawn, and the pets. Also, she may possibly be working non-stop to help them with their future. She will stay very busy during the day and cry herself to sleep occasionally at night due to the pain missing him has caused. She will worry about him and patiently wait for him until he returns. A military wife will be proud that she can handle everything on her own while he fights for the country they both love.

Not all women are capable of dealing with everything that is involved with being a military wife. The women that can’t live the military life find out shortly after entering into it. Those who can, will do anything it takes to make their marriage stronger than they had ever dreamed of. They will ignore the things others will say such as, “How do you do it” or “My husband went to Europe once on business.” They know that standing behind their husband and his love for his country is their number one priority. A military wife would not change anything about her life except to have the man she loves home more often.

No insurance

As far as a military spouse goes, I am not a professional. My husband joined the Reserves when his four years of active duty was up. We both thought that this would be a good transition into civilian life. By doing the Reserves, he will be getting a small check each month and still be able to take advantage of military health and life insurance.

His ETS date was September 29th. We have 180 days from this day to be on his active duty insurance (TAMP, no idea what that stands for). After that we have to sign up for Tri-Care Reserves. The 180 days is almost up so I got a hold of the one person that I have ever came in contact with who knows squat about the insurance. She is in the Reserves or Guard or something and she is the DEERS administrator. We met her when we got our ID cards in August. Sgt D. I will call her.

Sgt. D. tells me the website to go to and after numerous emails back and forth and me giving her my husbands SS # she informs me that when we got our Reserves ID's back in October that the dumbass guy at the Navy ID place had messed us up in the system. (It's closer town so we went there instead.) It was/is showing that he was never active duty and that we have no insurance. How nice?

Last week, I scanned and emailed her a copy of his DD214, which he basically has to have to do anything. I tried again last night to get us signed up for Tri-Care Reserves and it's still not working. I emailed her again this morning and she said their system was down. She's going to keep in contact with me and let me know when it is fixed.

I'm not too worried about it because the military is always screwing things up, nothing can be easy, and Sgt. D. told me that if something were to happen to either of us that we would be covered.

Hopefully someday soon we will have insurance again.

Army Xmas Party

Yesterday we had Matt's Army Christmas party. I've been an Army wife for over a year and finally made my big debut. I must admit we clean up pretty nice.

Here we are outside freezing our arses off, just as I anticipated.

When we walked in we got a ticket. Later on they drew for door prizes. My number was the second one called. There were all kinds of door prizes ranging from manicures to Cardinals tickets to an Army stepping stone. I let the hubs go pick something out. In true Matt fashion, this was his choice:

And no there is no money in it. Lunch was good. We pretty much just enjoyed each others company because Matt knew like three people there. His squad leader is a chick and she is really nice.

They were asking for people to help with FRG for the unit. About 15 people from the unit are moving to a different town, closer to our house, in hopefully a couple months. I told his squad leader that I would help with FRG when they move. Matt will not deploy again and its hard to say if anyone else in his unit will deploy before he is done.

In true Army fashion at then end he had to "hurry up" and sign out. Then being the guy he is he helped put chairs away and what not, so I got to "wait."

Here is me during the hurry up and wait.

Happy Monday!!!

Drill Weekend

Matt's at his second drill this weekend. He's only texted me a couple times this morning so maybe they are keeping him busy and he will enjoy it more. I slept in until 9 this morning which is quite an accomplishment for me these days.

Tomorrow is the Christmas dinner formal for Matt's new unit. He drills 2 hours away. Tomorrow morning I'm getting my hair done at 7:30 A.M. and then driving up there. I'm supposed to be there by 11. I guess I'm a little excited. This will technically be my big debut as an Army Wife. I never did the Army ball or anything like that (distance was an issue).

I'm hoping that I will fit in better than at his work Christmas party. It's hard to explain but I feel at the Army party at least most everyone will have respect for each other and what they have been through. I have a issue with people not respecting my husband, us, and what we have been through. He doesn't. Just me. It's not like I think we are better than anyone or anything like that. I just think some people have no respect for our soldiers or their family.

Today I need have to write my paper for my Comp final. We read "The Birthmark" and have to write about man's quest for perfection. We have several topics we could relate it to and I chose cosmetic surgery. I've wrote the first paragraph, which for me is always the hardest. And now I'm finding myself blogging. Any comments?

I also need to go to Wal-Mart today to get some fleece fabric. I'm making a fleece blanket for Matt's battle buddy. They were roommates in Iraq and we both wanted to send him a gift for Christmas. He is from Oregon so I need to get it in the mail before too long.

I'm also hoping to have the house spotless for when Matt comes home.

Our weekend

Matt was gone this weekend doing his drill for the Reserves. His unit consists of 12 or 13 people right now and they can't even drill where they are supposed to because they don't have any equipment. I mean nothing. No Humvees. No helicopters. (My husband re-fuels helicopters.) No helmets. Nothing.

He got to fill out paperwork this weekend. And he got a flu shot. He already sounds like crap so I'm sure he will get sick. (I'm kinda anti-flu shot.) In December, he has some kind of Christmas party on the Sunday of his drill. He told them that I would go. Which is fine, I will go. I never got to do any of the go-to-formal-functions-while-your-husband-wears-his-class-A's things.

Problem is: I don't wear dresses. The last time I wore a dress was our wedding and before that was probably my high school graduation. I'm too short for long dresses and my legs are too chubby for short dresses. Do I care... NO. I just don't wear dresses. What's a chubby legged girl to do?

Anyway... I was all by my lonesome self this weekend. I wrote a 4 page paper, which is pretty good. I started my other paper. I studied for my test tomorrow. I cleaned our house, floors and all. I became addicted to Farmville. I napped on the couch with Ozzy, both Saturday and Sunday afternoon. I went shopping. I applied for scholarships. I caught up on my DVR. It was nice.

Happy Monday!

Little of this and a little of that

This weekend Matt has his first drill for the Reserves. His drill is over two hours away from where we live so he will be staying there in a hotel. He leaves tonight and won't be back until sometime Sunday. I'm not going to booh whoo about how much I'm going to miss him because after 14.5 months in Iraq, two days is nothing.

Yes, it will suck when I need something off the top shelf and I won't have him to get it for me. But I guess that's why we have a step stool. Sometimes when we are home together all weekend, I try to find things for him to do like outside or away from the house so maybe one weekend apart a month will be a good thing.

I don't want this to seem like I want him to go but I know he has to. And I'm going to have to get used to it.

He is taking the car to drill so I will have his new truck all weekend. I might go to the redneck bar and rev the truck up, you know cause then I'd be cool. Its more likely though that I'll just be driving it to Wal-Mart to buy toiletries. When did I become so lame?

With him gone, I'm going to take full advantage of cleaning our house and doing some homework. I have two papers that need to be finished in 2 weeks. I also have a test Tuesday night.

Speaking of school, FYI, I still have 100% in both of my classes. This is not due to lack of assignments, test, and whatnot. I can register for classes for next semester this coming Tuesday and I'm going to try to take 3 classes next semester. This is my first semester taking 2 so that could be interesting.

I also want to play my guitars this weekend. I've been so busy with taking care of our house, my husband, and my dog and going to school that I have not had time to play either of my guitars in months. I love playing because when I do its like nothing else matters and I can't think of anything else.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!!

Well lets see...

I haven't posted in awhile so I figured I better. I don't have any good stories to share or earth shattering news.

I stayed home all weekend and did homework, as I said I would. I got all kinds of shit stuff done. I'm actually ahead on my homework. And we don't have any plans this weekend so I plan on staying on top of it this weekend too.

I made stuffed peppers on Saturday. That was a first for me. They were awesome and so easy. I love my crock pot. I usually make something in the crock pot on Saturday and then we pretty much eat it all weekend. I need to figure out something to make in it this weekend. Any suggestions? I have made potato soup & chili recently.

I finally started a facebook. Matt and I have a myspace together and it is totally lame. No one ever leaves us a message or comment or anything. Some of our friends haven't even logged on in months. So I started a facebook. One thing I am noticing is that people I barely know want to be my friend. On our myspace it was more like people that we are actually friends with are our friends. If you wanna follow let me know and I will give you my email address. I figure, anyone who reads this probably knows more about me than some of my real life friends.

Matt got his Reserves unit drama figured out. He is actually supposed to be where his orders say. But no one is there full-time. Its kinda like you have to make an appointment with the lady, I guess. He's on his own with that one. He goes on Friday to report. He does know that their will be 13 people in his unit there. Sounds like to me that he may be fighting freedom one game of solitaire at a time. I mean they don't even have any equipment there. Who knows? I'll make sure to fill you in when he has his first drill.

The Guard?

Matt official ETS date was September 26th. So on the 26th our Active Duty military ID's expired. Wednesday we went to Decatur, which is like an hour and a half away to get our Reserves ID cards. Which mine, by the way, is pink.

The Reserves unit that Matt is supposed to join is in Decatur and he has 30 days from the 26th to report. So, we thought while we were there he could just sign in and find out when he has drill and whatnot. On his contract it gave the address. We went there. Place was locked up tighter than Ft. Knox.

There is also a National Guard unit in Decatur. So we went there to see if they knew anything. We talked to a couple people there and they all said that the Reserves unit had moved from Decatur to Wisconsin (8 hours away) about 6 months ago. They said a lot of guys from that unit transferred to their National Guard unit. They gave him a number to a place in StL to call and they said he was supposed to report to the place that was closed also.

Honestly, it really doesn't surprise me that Army can't get this kinda shit stuff straight.

But, there is a National Guard unit in our hometown and he is going to talk to a recruiter from there today that's wife is a friend of mine. The Guard unit in our hometown just got back from deployment and are not expecting to re-deploy for three years. (The reason he was going to join the Reserves in the first place was because he would have been on a non-deployable status.)

So, I guess we will find out later today what is going to happen.

And thank you all for being so supportive on my last post.

I'm a little bitter

I've been putting off writing about this because I thought once I wrote it, it would be true. But now I know, unfortunately that it is true.

Anyone who knows anything about the military knows that you can ask one person one thing and another person the same thing and get two different answers.

When my hubby was going through his clearing process, he was told more than one that I would be able to go to school on his GI bill. I called/emailed the veteran's advisor at the college I go to numerous times between the time I started school and last week. In the beginning, she gave me enough stuff to do to keep me out of her hair.

I called her again last week and told her that hubby has his DD 214 and we would like to meet with her to transfer his GI bill to me. She informs me that there are some very specific requirement that we must meet. He has to have served 6 years, in some way shape or form, and re-enlist for another 4.

He has served 4 and 1/2 years and is going to be in the reserves for another 1 year and 9 months. So basically after the 1 and 9 months (that he is non-deployable) in the reserves, he would have to re-enlisted for 4 more years (and be deployable). Neither one of us wants him to deploy again. Its not worth it to us. He did his thing.

I thought maybe she was the one who didn't know what she was talking about so I did some research, called some people, met with some people and find out that she was right. I'm not going to school courtesy of the Army anymore.

I just don't understand. He doesn't want to go to school. I do. What's the problem?

I did get to talk to a guy that is located between the old and new courthouse. (Nice guy. Very straight forward and wants to help us.) I told him that Matt had specifically had been told when he was clearing that I could use his GI bill. He said "Well of course they did. They will tell them anything to get them to leave happy."

I believe that.

I also talked to this guy about helping my hubby find a job. A job that pays good. A job that he likes. When he came back, he started working at the job he had before he went to the Army. Not because he liked it but because it was a job that would hire him right away.

He gave me the name and number of another guy who's job is to help veterans find jobs. He works in like three counties and is only here on Mondays.

Yesterday was the first day where Matt told me that he hated the job he has now. It makes me depressed that he hates it. I want him to be happy. If he's not happy, I'm not happy. I like my job. (I'd like it more if I got paid more) And I believe that he deserves to like his.

I thank God everyday that we both have jobs and we are both healthy. (Especially after going to the VA yesterday and seeing how big of a joke that is but that's another story and I'm not going to go there.)

As far as school goes, Matt doesn't want me to quit. I don't want to quit. But there is no way we can qualify for financial aid; we both work and don't have any kids. We aren't interested in student loans. We have a mortgage to pay.

Going to school makes me feel good about myself. It could partially be because I have a 4.0. So I'm doing great in school. I guess I will just take 2 or 3 classes a semester. I wanted to get an Associates in Business and do a tech program for Accounting all at the same school. Like I said, I have a job, a job that I'm not afraid of losing. But I want to have some kind of degree. Because I know I can.

Anyway, sorry this blog is all over the place.

Random Happenings

School started last night for me. I have Sociology on Tuesday nights from 7 to 9:45 and Comp. II on Monday nights from 6:15 to 9. I had Sociology last night. It seems a little weird to me. I like to be prepared for class and skim over what we are going to talk about before class. Last night we went over the first chapter. Obviously I didn't have time to skim it before class. The teacher talks so fast it was hard to take any notes but she does have the notes posted online. I will have to write a research paper for both of my classes. Booh! I'll just be glad when I get all of my pre-reqs out of the way and can start taking classes I like.

I still need to fill out my financial aid stuff for school but after looking at it once, I'm wondering if I am smart enough to fill it out.

Another reason why we never told the army we were married is because I had descent insurance at work. Well that's about to change. Starting September 1st my insurance is going to officially suck ass and be very pricey. Matt doesn't go to his Reserves unit untill the end of October. We definately need to get me on some type of Army insurance before then. I called the Guard unit here in town today and Srg. So and So is supposed to be getting me some numbers and stuff. Sounds like I will have to go to Springfield and register in DEERS.

I've been stoked about getting a military ID since before we were married. It will just be cool. We don't live close to a base so I doubt I'll get to use it much unless I get carded for beer or something.

We are having a house warming party labor day weekend. Both of us have big families so we are having it on Saturday and Sunday from noon to midnightish. I haven't started freaking out about it yet.

Well that's about all I know right now. Hope everyone has a wonderful day!!!