Happy Anniversary Valarie!

Have you ever struggled to find the perfect words to express how deeply and emotionally wonderful you felt for something or someone special to you? That’s how I feel today. Sometimes I think I’m a pretty good writer, able to paint a vivid word-picture or turn a clever phrase. But when thinking about how wonderful Valarie has been in our marriage; how amazingly loyal, supportive, and loving of a partner she has been; how enduringly hard-working and caring of a wife and mother she has been; how naturally beautiful, interesting, and funny of a person she has been, any words I can write just pale in comparison to the feelings of love and admiration I have for her. She’s just the best thing in the world to me and I appreciate everyday how truly blessed I am to have her. I can still remember the first feelings of love I had for Valarie when we were dating in high school, like the first casual, matter-of-fact kiss she gave me when I dropped her off from a date and I didn’t feel (so) nervous around her anymore, just happy. And over the past 24 years (21 married), there have been thousands of simple loving, exciting, and happy moments like that early kiss that have made me feel special and grateful to be in love with and loved by such a wonderful person. I thought I was love in high school, but as Van Morrison said, “It ain’t nothing like I love you now.” I’m so happy I have Valarie in my life and can’t wait to share the next 20+ years with her, then the next 20+ years after that. Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart. I love you with all my heart, mind, and soul.

From 2 Months Left to 2 Weeks in Just 1 Day

One of the reasons I took this deployment was to get a 180-day deployment out of the way so I wouldn’t get tagged for a 365 sometime (years) later. But now that it’s all but assured I’ll have to retire in summer 2011, I don’t really need to worry about getting a long deployment anymore. Fortunately, I’m deployed in an optional manning billet (vice the official ISAF manning billet) and it’s always been theoretically possible that I could leave early. In fact, they’ve been “threatening” to send some of us home early for months now. There are too many volunteer/optional people and IJC has needed to cut down the extra people. Of course, I never planned on that and just kept plugging away. After receiving the “Promote” on my PRF, I did start thinking about how I could start planting the seeds with the Group Staff to maybe consider letting me leave early. I knew they wouldn’t have that much of a problem with it and would probably support it, but I didn’t know how to start working it with IJC.

Then, totally unprompted, the Lt Col that tracks all of the Air Force manning came to my desk and asked me for my tour start and end dates. I told him, “31 Oct and as soon as possible.” He smirked at me like he had heard that tired joke too many times. Then I said, “Here’s the deal, sir” and explained the whole “Promote” PRF above the zone notification I received (just 3 days earlier). Being an Air Force Lt Col, he knew exactly what that meant and actually said to me, “So you don’t need this deployment.” Then he explained that the reason he was asking was because the IJC CJ1 (Admin) was scrubbing the optional billets and had my departure date as March. I told him that that would work for me and he said that if my Group agreed he would submit my new departure date. I checked with the Group, they had no problem with it, so I told the Lt Col that he could change the date. Then he asked me when in March I wanted to leave, so naturally I said, “The first week”, and we agreed on 7 March. So just like that, I went from being 2 months from going home to being 2 weeks.

I thought about waiting until 25 February to tell Val the news as sort of an anniversary gift, but I couldn’t keep news that good to myself. I had to tell her. And I’m glad I did; she said she would have been mad if I knew for a week before telling her the good news. Thinking about it, I realize she should get the good news as soon as possible as well, so she can feel as uplifted and relieved as me. I’m still coordinating with the Air Force Admin personnel to get all of the paperwork, requests, and travel arrangements officially approved and completed, but I’m confident that it will all work out. I almost can’t believe how coincidental all of this has been! It’s truly amazing and I’m extremely thankful to a gracious Lord that I’ll be going home as soon as possible to be with my wonderful family again. .

I've Officially Gone ROAD

I had been so anxious lately about getting my PRF because, as I said in the previous post, it meant the difference between getting promoted and being asked to retire. I was disappointed last year when I didn’t make it in the “primary zone” board and knew that my chances “above the zone” were extremely small (literally 2%). So I had been mentally preparing myself for retirement, while still holding out a glimmer of hope for promotion. But the more I thought about it, the thought of retirement, even with the realization that I’d have to find a new job/career, started sounding better and better to me. For the most part I’ve enjoyed being in the military. It’s had its advantages, but I think I was starting to burn out on it. The PCS moves got harder and harder. I’ve had my limit of supervisors/commanders telling me I’m the best thing since sliced bread, then “forgetting” to give me a decent stratification or include annual and quarterly awards on my annual evaluations (OPRs) (Note from Val: These are awards he has actually won, but weren't entered into his official record somehow. It's been a lot of work for Eric to retroactively get them entered, and then theydisappeared again.). And I’ve gotten too tired of hoping in an assignment and promotion system that I don’t understand and have no control over.

So when I received my PRF a few days ago and saw that it had a “Promote” recommendation, I had a lot of mixed feelings, but general acceptance. On one hand, I was disappointed again that I didn’t receive a “Definitely Promote”. I had hoped to make Lt Col, work a few more years in the Air Force, then retire. I know I’m as good or better than half of the Lt Col’s I’ve seen or worked with, but I just didn’t make it through the system. But, I also know that I’ve been burning out on the Air Force for a little while now and it’s probably a good thing to just move on. Sure, I’m nervous about finding another job. I haven’t had to find and be accepted for a full-time job since signing recruitment papers in 1987. But I’m also kind of excited about doing something different and hopefully doing that thing for several years, so I can have the mental stability of doing the same job and becoming an expert in something. Every 3-year assignment has been a different job and even within those assignments, I’ve had different jobs. So, in the summer of 2011, I’ll be 42 and will start a new career; one that will hopefully settle us down for a longer timeframe (especially since the kids will be starting high school and middle school respectively).

So for my remaining 15 months in the Air Force, I’m officially ROAD (retired on active duty). Most often that’s a negative description of a guy that doesn’t care about doing any work for the Air Force because he knows it won’t help his career or he’s just counting down the days until he officially separates from the Air Force. I will still have a positive attitude and do my full job and help others to do their jobs well; I like doing meaningful work and improving the product or process, but I know my priorities will change somewhat. I’ve got to job hunt and I want the family and I to travel and experience and enjoy as much of Europe as possible while we’re there. Hopefully I won’t become the negative connotation of ROAD, but I’ll be ROAD none-the-less as I start trying to plan for the next career. Yikes, how do civilians do it?

Val Makes a Bad Day Good

As my previous post probably suggests, I’ve been in less-than-stellar mood lately. I’ve been very busy supporting the Logistics ROC (rehearsal of concept) drill. I should have a very small role in the ROC drill, seeing how I’m not in Logistics, but they kept hitting me up for information and tagging me to brief more and more things. I understand that I’m one of the few people that have been tracking the force flow for a while now, but that doesn’t make me a Logistics officer. Plus, I’ve been trying to actually do some Air-related taskers on the side and the RC-West team still wants me to help them out on their planning. Plus! The 14-15 hour days seems longer than I remembered them.

But probably the biggest thing that’s been bugging me lately is waiting to see the final draft of my Lt Col PRF (promotion recommendation form). I know the form has been written and they have to send it to me before the board on 8 March, so I’m just anxiously waiting. This next board is my next and last decent chance to be selected for promotion and my chances all hinge on whether I get a “Promote” or “Definitely Promote” recommendation. Only a “Definitely Promote” recommendation would get me promoted. Otherwise, I “have” to retire in the summer of 2011. But to be honest, during a chaotic deployment like this I often think I would rather retire and move on to something different.

Lucky Val gets to hear most of the things that bother me because she’s one of the few people I feel I can vent to. Plus, she’s my bestest best friend in the whole, wide universe. So she knows when I’m struggling or down in general. But even before I vented to her here recently, I just happened to check out the Navigon blog and see what sweet and thoughtful words she had to say about how hard I work (Feb 15, "How Do You Do It?" post). No one knows better than me how hard Val works and hopefully she knows how much I appreciate her. It was just wonderful timing and extremely uplifting to read how much she appreciates the work that I do. Even when work or the world in general starts to wear on me, just thinking about how lucky I am to have such a wonderful wife and children always puts things in perspective for me and I find the patience and endurance to “just do it.”

Back to the Grind

For some reason, the 16-hour plane ride back to Dubai was harder than the 16-hour plane ride back to the US; only slept a few hours. We arrived in Dubai at 8:30 pm, but our connecting flight didn't take-off until 6:30 am. The hard part of spending the night in the Dubai airport was trying to transfer to the other terminal to wait to board my next flight. Since my next flight didn't leave until the next morning, I couldn't go straight over to the other terminal. So I had to wait until 12:30 before they'd let me through the security gate. THEN, I find out that I have to wait until 3:30 am to get my transfer to the other terminal. It was a lot of waiting around, trying to catch a nap with my head in my hand. All this (the flights, the waiting) was made harder by a massive head-cold I had been fighting for two weeks.

I arrived back to Kabul and KAIA by 11:00 am and was showered, shaved, and back at work by 1:00 pm. Like coming back from all TDYs and leaves, I spent the afternoon clearing out hundreds (literally) of e-mails I received while I was gone. It was kind of nice though that co-workers were shaking my hand to welcome me back; like they genuinely missed me.
Then, reality set in as people started informing me of projects and taskers that I had to do soon: Who's waiting on me to do the beddown slides? I'm supposed to brief the force flow at what ROC drill? I'm going out to RC-West when; to help them do what? That kept me spun-up
for awhile and actually helped me make it through most of the day, but by 7:00 pm I was starting to feel loopy, literally dizzy. So I left work early and slept 11 hours. Fortunately the next day was Sunday, a late report day.

It's taken almost a week to finally get over my cold. I think it was the vitamin B complex and zinc pills I've been taking every morning and getting 8 hours of sleep each night that finally helped me kill it off. And I've gotten a grasp on which duties and taskers I actually have to
do. I've successfully pushed off or deflected a few and know what I need to do for the rest. Now I just have to get use to working 14-15 hours days again.

100204 - Back to Afghanistan

Well, it’s been a wonderful break from the deployment. I haven’t written much because I’ve been so busy enjoying my down time. The conference went well, in as much as I contributed some and learned a lot. The actual transportation plan however didn’t go so well and caused the one-week conference to be extended for four more days. While it wasn’t so good for the conference, it did mean that I needed to extend my visit as well. So got to enjoy America even more! It’s been great. I was able to surf iTunes and download more TV shows and new songs. (Josh Ritter – Great Big Mind; Gomez – Airstream Driver; Basia Bulat – Before I Knew; etc.) I caught up on my favorite TV shows. (Heroes – how many times is Sylar going to switch between being a hero or a villain? Lost – loved the two-hour episode, following two separate timelines; they’re not showing yet in Germany, so Val will have to download it from iTunes (hint, hint); and enjoyed the American Idol auditions – how can people be so clueless that they can’t see? And now I get the pants-on-the-ground reference.) I ate out so much (Texas Roadhouse, Olive Garden, Chevy’s, IHOP, Boston Market, Applebee’s, California Pizza Kitchen, etc.) I’m actually looking forward to just grabbing a quick meal at the chow hall. I did a lot of window-shopping since I only brought a carry-on bag and couldn’t take anything additional back to Afghanistan, but it was nice to just look around. And I got to talk to Val at least once a day.

In weird way though, I’m kind of ready to get back to Afghanistan. I know this TDY is just temporary and I need to get back to the deployment so I can start counting down to the end of the deployment. The end of January was the halfway point. Now that it’s February (the shortest month!), it feels like I’m on the downhill side of the deployment. I feel (mentally) recharged and am ready to get back to work, start working out more, and start planning for some family summer-time vacations. Physically, I've been sick the entire time I've been here. I've had a head cold and can't seem to shake it. For some reason, I feel like I'll be able to shake it when I get back to Afghanistan. That seems weird to me, but I felt better when I was there, so that's another reason I'm looking forward to getting back. I’ve just got to get through February, March, and should be home by the end of April. Man, I can’t wait. The family and I have been hanging in there, but it will be so much easier to all be together again.