Apr 18, 2013
Had to get up by 5ish to make sure to get into the unit by 7am. Never went to the unit during the week so I didn't how traffic would be going there, so better to make sure to leave a little early to compensate. Got there in plenty of time. Did a few things at the unit and got a ride to the Reserve Center to check in with the mobilization officer. Got stuff done there and then back to the unit and then went out to lunch. Went to a place I hadn't tried before.. food was pretty good. Went back to the unit and my Senior Chief up with me and we had a talk about the reskid situation. After sorting through the issues, mostly a communication issue we were cool. Then he went into talking about what to expect on my MOB since he was also there somewhat recently. He me some good gouge and said I should have a good time there. Didn't do a whole lot after that. On my way back to my mom's place I hit up a couple of stores... Best Buy and a uniform store that sells some knives as I was looking to replace one I recently lost. No luck on finding a replacement. Got back to my mom's and then we went out to get some dinner.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Orders modified
Apr 17, 2013
So today I decided to get some errands done... Loaded up the old trampoline frame to recycle and got just over $8, wow. Then went and picked up my sister's contact lens from the eye doctor. Went over to Lowe's and returned a hammock because we didn't like the design of it. Took the SUV to get a car wash. Picked up some strawberries from the local stand we like. Drove the SUV to the collision center place where I had it fixed last to look over a couple of lights that were out. Went home and ate some leftovers for lunch. Pretty solid day so far, got a lot done before I had to drive to LA in the evening so I would be there for drill the next morning. Anyways after about 4pm I decided to try and access my Navy email which I couldn't the day before or even earlier in the day. Finally got in and going through what I had and saw one that notified me that my mobilization orders had been modified. I got to the site that I can access to see my orders and I start reading what the change was... it was big change... the amount of days I was to be in Africa changed from 140 days to 330. It took me a bit and had to re-read it to make sure I had it right... yup... another shocker. I told my wife to come into the office to show her, I knew this was going to upset her. She came in and I just told her to read my computer screen... all she could do was wonder why and what changed to make this change. All I could do was speculate some answers, but it didn't really matter, the fact was that I was now going to be away from my family for a whole year instead of a few months. I was going to miss birthdays and holidays, I was going to miss a lot of milestones that Maverick and Ivy were going to make. Being an optimist I thought about some of the good that could come of this instead of dwelling about the bad aspects. More money for the family and we could be pretty much out of debt except of course the house payments. But it was still a shocker, I think I knew in the back of my mind that the original 140 days really didn't make sense. The rest of the day went as planned, had dinner, packed my things and left for LA for the 4 day drill I had... the last drill I would do before being mobilized.
So today I decided to get some errands done... Loaded up the old trampoline frame to recycle and got just over $8, wow. Then went and picked up my sister's contact lens from the eye doctor. Went over to Lowe's and returned a hammock because we didn't like the design of it. Took the SUV to get a car wash. Picked up some strawberries from the local stand we like. Drove the SUV to the collision center place where I had it fixed last to look over a couple of lights that were out. Went home and ate some leftovers for lunch. Pretty solid day so far, got a lot done before I had to drive to LA in the evening so I would be there for drill the next morning. Anyways after about 4pm I decided to try and access my Navy email which I couldn't the day before or even earlier in the day. Finally got in and going through what I had and saw one that notified me that my mobilization orders had been modified. I got to the site that I can access to see my orders and I start reading what the change was... it was big change... the amount of days I was to be in Africa changed from 140 days to 330. It took me a bit and had to re-read it to make sure I had it right... yup... another shocker. I told my wife to come into the office to show her, I knew this was going to upset her. She came in and I just told her to read my computer screen... all she could do was wonder why and what changed to make this change. All I could do was speculate some answers, but it didn't really matter, the fact was that I was now going to be away from my family for a whole year instead of a few months. I was going to miss birthdays and holidays, I was going to miss a lot of milestones that Maverick and Ivy were going to make. Being an optimist I thought about some of the good that could come of this instead of dwelling about the bad aspects. More money for the family and we could be pretty much out of debt except of course the house payments. But it was still a shocker, I think I knew in the back of my mind that the original 140 days really didn't make sense. The rest of the day went as planned, had dinner, packed my things and left for LA for the 4 day drill I had... the last drill I would do before being mobilized.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Getting notified
Feb 27, 2013
Things were going good in my life... a good family, home and job. This happened to be my first son's birthday. We had just met with a pool construction owner to talk about the possibility of putting a pool in our backyard since it tends to get hot here in the summer time. So we had a good idea of what we wanted the pool to look like and it looked like we would probably go forward with putting a pool in.
Then it came... the call... the mobilization officer from my Navy Operational Support Center (NOSC) in Los Angeles called. He flat out told me that I was getting mobilized. My first reaction was "you've got to be kidding me"... it was one of shock. He proceeded to give me some details on what I needed to do and where I was going, other than that there wasn't any real details on what I would be doing as my orders weren't loaded into the system yet. When he told me the location I thought about an email I had read about a month ago advertising a MOB opportunity for someone of my rate and rank to the location named for 330 days boots on the ground (BOG) as an armory LCPO. Immediately I thought this is the billet I am getting... they advertised and no one rogered up for it so they went to the ready mob pool (RMP) list to pick someone to fill the slot to go. Yes, I was on that RMP list... I was on it two years ago and dodged the bullet meaning I didn't get selected to MOB then. Since I didn't get called then you get a one year deferment from the list and wouldn't you know when the list for year came out I was back on it and I knew then that I was probably going to get picked to go... so they got me.
After the call I told my wife I was getting MOB'd and she about started into tears. My wife is a strong woman but she had never been a Navy wife per se. She had never experienced the 6 month deployments that regular Sailors go on routinely, so this was going to be a new thing for her... being away from me for a long period of time. The most time spent away from each other to this point was about 3 weeks which was for the Navy while I was doing one of my Annual Trainings (AT).
I didn't make a Facebook status update or anything but I did inform my mom that I was getting mobilized and my wife told her mom too.
Things were going good in my life... a good family, home and job. This happened to be my first son's birthday. We had just met with a pool construction owner to talk about the possibility of putting a pool in our backyard since it tends to get hot here in the summer time. So we had a good idea of what we wanted the pool to look like and it looked like we would probably go forward with putting a pool in.
Then it came... the call... the mobilization officer from my Navy Operational Support Center (NOSC) in Los Angeles called. He flat out told me that I was getting mobilized. My first reaction was "you've got to be kidding me"... it was one of shock. He proceeded to give me some details on what I needed to do and where I was going, other than that there wasn't any real details on what I would be doing as my orders weren't loaded into the system yet. When he told me the location I thought about an email I had read about a month ago advertising a MOB opportunity for someone of my rate and rank to the location named for 330 days boots on the ground (BOG) as an armory LCPO. Immediately I thought this is the billet I am getting... they advertised and no one rogered up for it so they went to the ready mob pool (RMP) list to pick someone to fill the slot to go. Yes, I was on that RMP list... I was on it two years ago and dodged the bullet meaning I didn't get selected to MOB then. Since I didn't get called then you get a one year deferment from the list and wouldn't you know when the list for year came out I was back on it and I knew then that I was probably going to get picked to go... so they got me.
After the call I told my wife I was getting MOB'd and she about started into tears. My wife is a strong woman but she had never been a Navy wife per se. She had never experienced the 6 month deployments that regular Sailors go on routinely, so this was going to be a new thing for her... being away from me for a long period of time. The most time spent away from each other to this point was about 3 weeks which was for the Navy while I was doing one of my Annual Trainings (AT).
I didn't make a Facebook status update or anything but I did inform my mom that I was getting mobilized and my wife told her mom too.
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