First of all, let me explain what a holdover is. In the Army world, it is someone who has begun their military training and then for whatever reason, they don't finish their training. It can also be an AIT graduate who is waiting to leave for their next duty station. I was a holdover 3 times. The first two times, it was horrible. The final time, it was bittersweet.
After graduating Basic Training, people go on to their Advanced Individual Training (AIT) schools. This is where I had the misfortune of becoming a holdover. My original MOS (job) in the Army was a Geospatial Engineer. That just sounds awesome! Essentially, it's map making. I didn't understand a lot of what I was learning or doing but I always found it interesting.
Each AIT has different policies about test taking but they're basically the same. Fail two tests in a row and you're out. The test that did me in was Map Composition. When making a map, everything has to be precise. Everything is measured. Even font size and type has to be perfect. The test was also testing our attention to detail abilities. The weekend before I left, I stayed in my room and cried my eyes out. That Sunday afternoon, one of my friends was able to get me out and he cheered me up with a game of Chess. May 5th was the day I moved on from Belvoir to Eustis.
I HATED being a holdover at Eustis. Using my experience as a holunder, I was able to dodge certain duties. I knew what I needed to do to make myself unavailable. The task I was constantly avoiding was CQ (Charge of Quarters). CQ isn't usually so bad but when there are only 4 or 5 people available, it's absolutely dreadful.
Normally, a CQ shift is 2 hours long. But with so few people to begin with and some of those few who refuse to do it, a 2 hour shift could turn into 6, 8, or 11 hours. I forgot to state the simple fact that while on CQ, we're sitting in one spot doing nothing. We're not allowed to have any electronics to keep us occupied. Word search puzzles, magazines, and books were our only form of entertainment. Not so bad for the first couple hours but when the 4th hour hits, you need something more.
And so since I had paid my dues while I was a holdunder, I didn't do CQ longer than the first week I became a holdover. Constantly finding ways out of CQ was difficult at times but I managed. The month I was a holdover, I had been working on obtaining a new MOS and so I had to meet with a Sergeant Major regularly. Also, one of my battle buddies had a lot of doctor appointments and so I accompanied her many times. On July 30th, I moved on from Eustis to Lee.
Lee wasn't bad at all. The cadre (Sergeants who are in charge of us) didn't really seem to care what we did so long as we stayed out of trouble. So, napping in the dayroom or watching t.v. was usually where I'd be. It was actually NICE being a holdover and it was because I was finally a Graduate!
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The Cherished Ones
SO sporadic with this whole thing. A year ago, it was my first day at my first AIT. It was the first of 3!
It was like a Trilogy that just got worse with each film. Belvoir was nice. I had the most freedom at Lee but I would've rather been back at Belvoir.
It's difficult to say I regret everything. Failing each school. Even joining the Army. I met a lot of amazing people in the Year That Was. Especially at the last two schools.
I'd have to say that I have one very true and dear friend from each place. Someone whose friendship I cherish deeply. From Basic, Brett. He was an unlikely candidate. I didn't really get to know him until a month before Graduation. He got me through both Belvoir and Lee.
From Belvoir, Pat. I had such a HUGE crush on him. I still do. I love him though NOT in an intimate way but as a really close friend. He got me through Eustis. Especially when I was most miserable.
From Eustis, Ralph and Eric. They don't know it and I don't talk to them as often as I should but I do think of them and I'm proud of all the accomplishments they both have made in the short time they've been out in the real Army.
From Lee, Austin. He was my APG (Assistant Platoon Guide) counterpart and he's one of my Go To guys. I know that I can usually go to him for anything I need advice on.
It was like a Trilogy that just got worse with each film. Belvoir was nice. I had the most freedom at Lee but I would've rather been back at Belvoir.
It's difficult to say I regret everything. Failing each school. Even joining the Army. I met a lot of amazing people in the Year That Was. Especially at the last two schools.
I'd have to say that I have one very true and dear friend from each place. Someone whose friendship I cherish deeply. From Basic, Brett. He was an unlikely candidate. I didn't really get to know him until a month before Graduation. He got me through both Belvoir and Lee.
From Belvoir, Pat. I had such a HUGE crush on him. I still do. I love him though NOT in an intimate way but as a really close friend. He got me through Eustis. Especially when I was most miserable.
From Eustis, Ralph and Eric. They don't know it and I don't talk to them as often as I should but I do think of them and I'm proud of all the accomplishments they both have made in the short time they've been out in the real Army.
From Lee, Austin. He was my APG (Assistant Platoon Guide) counterpart and he's one of my Go To guys. I know that I can usually go to him for anything I need advice on.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Random Thought
Sitting here conducting my job search, I can only wonder exactly HOW MANY other people are in the same situation as me. I know there are a lot. Is it in the hundreds of thousands? Millions? A billion? And out of those people, how many are having the same problem as me? No real employable job skills so it’s difficult to obtain a job without real experience or schooling. Yet, I can’t go to school without money. It’s all so irritating and frustrating. I feel as though I’m stuck in one place while all my friends around me are able to move forward and get to where they’re trying to be.
Monday, January 17, 2011
AIT Ranger
Basic was the most amazing thing I had been through. It taught me a lot about myself. Especially showing me the things I never thought I could do. I didn't think it was the easiest but I also didn't think it was the hardest. A lot of my fellow battle buddies thought Basic was insanely easy. At times, it was dismal being there and I did wonder if I'd make it through. It's all completely mental. But honestly, it was a lot of fun and sometimes I wish I could go back. As for my AIT (Advanced Individual Training) schools, that was a whole 'nother story.
Unfortunately, I managed to end up at 3 different AIT's and lemme tell you, for the most part, they're all the same. The people are different. Belvoir was not bad I must say. It was crazy laid back on the weekends even if you were stuck at the barracks. The Cadre (people in charge) was a little crazy but thankfully, there were only 4 of them. Ah, SFC for 1st Platoon, she could've been certifiably crazy but supposedly, she was secretly f-in AWEsome.
At the time, we all felt like the place was worse than basic. There were so many BS rules that just seemed impossible to follow. And the other kids that had been there for a while had seemed soooo undisciplined and disorganized. It was hard to believe they all had gone through basic at all. I promised myself that I would never lose myself and what I had learned from my Drill Sergeants.
Eustis...that was something else. It's a wonder my battles survived that place. THAT place made people insane. It was more depressing and miserable than Basic. It was a complete 180 from Belvoir. We had a mandatory study hour every night. We had to clean the barracks every day. We never seemed to have any free time. We were allotted an hour of personal time but because of random stupid things, we'd only have 30 or 40 minutes. A lot of people went AWOL from Eustis and I personally witnessed two cases.
Lee wasn't too bad. It was a mix of both places. It had all the BS of Eustis with the best of Belvoir. What was nice about Lee was that when one person f-ed up, they didn't discipline the entire company like they did at Eustis. They only punished those that had committed the crime. My class was extremely lucky, not only did we not have to go to the FTX (Field Training Exercise) but we were also able to graduate and go home 3 weeks ahead of schedule.
So, it was back home I went. By this time, I had been away from Maile for almost a year. I had so many worries upon my arrival, but they were definitely gone when I woke her up. Reconnecting with her was awesome.
And now, 3 months later, I'm back to where I was before I began this journey. I had hoped to find a job that correlated with my military one. I happen to have a job that I don't actually want nor am very good at and so finding a similar one is out of the question. I also found out that employers don't really even look at military schooling when considering people for jobs. Experience but not schooling.
The next part of my journey begins. I wanted to document it more as something that Maile could look back on when she's older. I've been wanting to start a journal for her for the past 3 years. To show her what I'm going through, what she's going through. What I want for her. The mistakes that I pray she doesn't repeat.
Unfortunately, I managed to end up at 3 different AIT's and lemme tell you, for the most part, they're all the same. The people are different. Belvoir was not bad I must say. It was crazy laid back on the weekends even if you were stuck at the barracks. The Cadre (people in charge) was a little crazy but thankfully, there were only 4 of them. Ah, SFC for 1st Platoon, she could've been certifiably crazy but supposedly, she was secretly f-in AWEsome.
At the time, we all felt like the place was worse than basic. There were so many BS rules that just seemed impossible to follow. And the other kids that had been there for a while had seemed soooo undisciplined and disorganized. It was hard to believe they all had gone through basic at all. I promised myself that I would never lose myself and what I had learned from my Drill Sergeants.
Eustis...that was something else. It's a wonder my battles survived that place. THAT place made people insane. It was more depressing and miserable than Basic. It was a complete 180 from Belvoir. We had a mandatory study hour every night. We had to clean the barracks every day. We never seemed to have any free time. We were allotted an hour of personal time but because of random stupid things, we'd only have 30 or 40 minutes. A lot of people went AWOL from Eustis and I personally witnessed two cases.
Lee wasn't too bad. It was a mix of both places. It had all the BS of Eustis with the best of Belvoir. What was nice about Lee was that when one person f-ed up, they didn't discipline the entire company like they did at Eustis. They only punished those that had committed the crime. My class was extremely lucky, not only did we not have to go to the FTX (Field Training Exercise) but we were also able to graduate and go home 3 weeks ahead of schedule.
So, it was back home I went. By this time, I had been away from Maile for almost a year. I had so many worries upon my arrival, but they were definitely gone when I woke her up. Reconnecting with her was awesome.
And now, 3 months later, I'm back to where I was before I began this journey. I had hoped to find a job that correlated with my military one. I happen to have a job that I don't actually want nor am very good at and so finding a similar one is out of the question. I also found out that employers don't really even look at military schooling when considering people for jobs. Experience but not schooling.
The next part of my journey begins. I wanted to document it more as something that Maile could look back on when she's older. I've been wanting to start a journal for her for the past 3 years. To show her what I'm going through, what she's going through. What I want for her. The mistakes that I pray she doesn't repeat.
In the Beginning...
What am I doing? How did I end up here? I constantly ask myself these questions. How did I waste my life away? Was it after my marriage that things went downhill for me? No...it was long before...
Instead of paying attention in high school, I was scribbling away in my notebooks. Not of the traumatic, cut my eyes out experiences of Oedipus or of the Lewis and Clark expedition. I was busy writing what I was convinced would be the next best selling novel. That still has yet to be finished 10 years later.
So, instead of going off to NYU or Georgetown like I had always wanted, I ended up at the local community college and working at a coffee shop. I was the typical college student. Barely scraping by with my measly minimum wage while using whatever tips I had made that week for gas.
That's when it happened. My knight in shining armor rode in on his white horse and swept me off my feet. Actually, a better metaphor would be that he was wearing Kevlar and combat boots and driving a Stryker. The point is, I fell in Love. Real fast, real hard. Six years later, I fell again. Even faster and twice as hard. The bastard left me and our child for some tramp he worked with.
So, at least one good thing came out of the six most wasted years of my life. Of course, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat just to get the end result. Well, maybe not 6 years. I would've ditched the birth control I started using at the beginning of our relationship just to get pregnant right off the bat and then leave him during the pregnancy. She is my inspiration to get out of this mess.
The day my daughter, Maile, was born, I thought to myself, 'it's just us now, this is the first day of the rest of our lives! we can do anything and everything we want!' That mentality only went so far. The thing was, I didn't have a job during the second half of my pregnancy and now, I was FORCED to find one. I was living with my parents and I wasn't sure as to when I should start looking. I was torn between finding one right away and being at home with Maile for at least a month or two.
I began my search when she was 2 months old. Unfortunately for me, I didn't have a lot of experience. I was a barista for 3 years. I had a love/hate relationship with the place at the time but I still would've gone to work there at the drop of a hat. The only other experience I had was being a bank teller. Of the two, going into the financial industry made more sense. And plus too, the coffee shop I had so many fond memories of was sold to some owners who, according to a former co-worker that stayed for the transition, ran the whole thing into the ground.
In the past, I never had a problem with finding jobs. Usually, I waited for a month from the time I applied for a job to the time I started it. But the economy was beginning to look bleak which made me nervous. I applied to the credit union I bank with at the end of November. And thankfully, I got hired and started mid February of 08. The year I was there went by quick and when mid Feb 10 rolled around, I was proud of myself. I was actually at a real job for a year. Granted, I was at the coffee shop for 3 but there was no real future there.
I HATED being a teller but I saw this milestone as a good thing. I had been turned down for an internal job I applied for a couple months earlier and now I saw that an even better job had opened up. I applied for it and waited and waited. I ended up being withdrawn from consideration because of an incident that happened earlier in the month. The unfortunate incident could've been prevented and I definitely DID try to prevent it, but when all was said and done, there was no way of fixing it once it happened. Sadly, I ended up being fired just a mere 2 weeks after I had hit my one year mark.
Holy cow, what was I going to do now?! Find another job, too easy, not a problem. I thought I wasn't able to put in for anymore banking jobs. So, I began applying for cashier positions, store associate positions, clerical positions. I had hoped my Associates degree I earned 4 years earlier would help just a bit. So much for wishful thinking. At the end of March, I decided to join the military. I was always dead set against joining but this was a last resort. I wanted to be able to use my training to obtain a similar job in the real world. And have the government pay for my Bachelor's degree. I only had one obstacle standing in my way of signing up right then and there!!! Well, really 20 obstacles. I had to lose 20 pounds in order to be qualified. Since joining the military was a last resort, I was pretty nonchalant about losing the weight. I was still trying hard to find a real job.
The first kick in the ass happened in June. Had I been ready to leave for Basic, I would've gone to the nursing school. I qualified as a freaking MEDIC with the NURSING option! My laziness had conquered and I lost a pretty good job. In August, I was able to go to MEPS, the screening portion of going into the military. I still had weight to lose but at the time, they administered what was called the STEP test. That's just pure hell....well, for someone who has never done any sort of exercise, it was a small portion of hell. I passed and I was to come back in October. That day, I vowed to lose all 20 pounds. The second kick in the ass happened that day as well. I had been able to pay for all my bills with no worries up to that point but if I didn't find a job fast, I would've begun to start defaulting on them.
October 14th, I went back to MEPS and weighed in. I had lost 21 pounds since the end of August and I was damn proud of myself. I was scheduled to ship off to Basic in a month and 2 days.
Instead of paying attention in high school, I was scribbling away in my notebooks. Not of the traumatic, cut my eyes out experiences of Oedipus or of the Lewis and Clark expedition. I was busy writing what I was convinced would be the next best selling novel. That still has yet to be finished 10 years later.
So, instead of going off to NYU or Georgetown like I had always wanted, I ended up at the local community college and working at a coffee shop. I was the typical college student. Barely scraping by with my measly minimum wage while using whatever tips I had made that week for gas.
That's when it happened. My knight in shining armor rode in on his white horse and swept me off my feet. Actually, a better metaphor would be that he was wearing Kevlar and combat boots and driving a Stryker. The point is, I fell in Love. Real fast, real hard. Six years later, I fell again. Even faster and twice as hard. The bastard left me and our child for some tramp he worked with.
So, at least one good thing came out of the six most wasted years of my life. Of course, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat just to get the end result. Well, maybe not 6 years. I would've ditched the birth control I started using at the beginning of our relationship just to get pregnant right off the bat and then leave him during the pregnancy. She is my inspiration to get out of this mess.
The day my daughter, Maile, was born, I thought to myself, 'it's just us now, this is the first day of the rest of our lives! we can do anything and everything we want!' That mentality only went so far. The thing was, I didn't have a job during the second half of my pregnancy and now, I was FORCED to find one. I was living with my parents and I wasn't sure as to when I should start looking. I was torn between finding one right away and being at home with Maile for at least a month or two.
I began my search when she was 2 months old. Unfortunately for me, I didn't have a lot of experience. I was a barista for 3 years. I had a love/hate relationship with the place at the time but I still would've gone to work there at the drop of a hat. The only other experience I had was being a bank teller. Of the two, going into the financial industry made more sense. And plus too, the coffee shop I had so many fond memories of was sold to some owners who, according to a former co-worker that stayed for the transition, ran the whole thing into the ground.
In the past, I never had a problem with finding jobs. Usually, I waited for a month from the time I applied for a job to the time I started it. But the economy was beginning to look bleak which made me nervous. I applied to the credit union I bank with at the end of November. And thankfully, I got hired and started mid February of 08. The year I was there went by quick and when mid Feb 10 rolled around, I was proud of myself. I was actually at a real job for a year. Granted, I was at the coffee shop for 3 but there was no real future there.
I HATED being a teller but I saw this milestone as a good thing. I had been turned down for an internal job I applied for a couple months earlier and now I saw that an even better job had opened up. I applied for it and waited and waited. I ended up being withdrawn from consideration because of an incident that happened earlier in the month. The unfortunate incident could've been prevented and I definitely DID try to prevent it, but when all was said and done, there was no way of fixing it once it happened. Sadly, I ended up being fired just a mere 2 weeks after I had hit my one year mark.
Holy cow, what was I going to do now?! Find another job, too easy, not a problem. I thought I wasn't able to put in for anymore banking jobs. So, I began applying for cashier positions, store associate positions, clerical positions. I had hoped my Associates degree I earned 4 years earlier would help just a bit. So much for wishful thinking. At the end of March, I decided to join the military. I was always dead set against joining but this was a last resort. I wanted to be able to use my training to obtain a similar job in the real world. And have the government pay for my Bachelor's degree. I only had one obstacle standing in my way of signing up right then and there!!! Well, really 20 obstacles. I had to lose 20 pounds in order to be qualified. Since joining the military was a last resort, I was pretty nonchalant about losing the weight. I was still trying hard to find a real job.
The first kick in the ass happened in June. Had I been ready to leave for Basic, I would've gone to the nursing school. I qualified as a freaking MEDIC with the NURSING option! My laziness had conquered and I lost a pretty good job. In August, I was able to go to MEPS, the screening portion of going into the military. I still had weight to lose but at the time, they administered what was called the STEP test. That's just pure hell....well, for someone who has never done any sort of exercise, it was a small portion of hell. I passed and I was to come back in October. That day, I vowed to lose all 20 pounds. The second kick in the ass happened that day as well. I had been able to pay for all my bills with no worries up to that point but if I didn't find a job fast, I would've begun to start defaulting on them.
October 14th, I went back to MEPS and weighed in. I had lost 21 pounds since the end of August and I was damn proud of myself. I was scheduled to ship off to Basic in a month and 2 days.
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