It's another Sunday morning here in our little corner of the world.
It's a little cloudy, but we haven't received the three or four inches of snow as predicted.
Maybe we dodged the bullet this time.
As often happens on Sunday mornings I find myself thinking about events. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.
This morning it's mostly bad!!!
I am quite disheartened by the current turn of events.
As posted earlier, we found out that Matt's brigade had been stopped lossed, and so with just over three months to ETS and lots of planning going on everything came to a screeching halt.
Now we find that while the entire brigade is stop lossed, not everyone in the brigade will be kept.
It seems they are choosing the soldiers they want based on their merit, and how they performed on the last deployment, and letting those who didn't do as well, or pissed their leaders off, out!
What a reward!!!!
And that's just not fair.
And it just may not be legal.
But would the Army or our government do anything that wasn't fair, or legal?
As you can well imagine Matt is quite angry over all of this.
As am I.
Oh, and while I'm at it, the Army hasn't paid one red cent of the money they agreed to pay on his college loans when he signed the contract!!
I'm sure they can claim that Matt hasn't completed his part of the paperwork properly. The truth is that they make the process so obscure and difficult to figure out that it takes a lawyer to complete.
Before they deployed, we thought everything had been taken care of satisfactorily.
Only when we started receiving phone calls at all hours of the day and night from the loan companies looking for their money did we realize that something was wrong.
And try to get straight answers out of the Army when a problem like this develops.
Calls were made to FRG, and rear detachment, and while FRG was helpful there was nothing they could do.
Rear detachment was useless.
It was like we were nothing more than a pain in the ass to them.
So I guess the message being sent is that once you sign the contract, the Army has you, and they have no obligation to honor the contract that they wrote.
I wonder why more people don't run down to their local recruiter and sign up.
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Thanks for the comment. i love that song! always makes me cry! anyways, do you know if matt is going to be staying or not? not that it makes the situation any less un-fair, but if he stays, that means he is awesome at his job! i dont mean to sound un-sympathetic. I dont agree with stop loss.My thoughts and prayers are with you and Matt.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jen,
ReplyDeleteAs it stands now he's staying, and going to Iraq in September.
His CSM and CO both told him it was because of his ability and attitude, that they wanted him to stay, and to consider it a badge of honor.
Little solace to him. He declined their many attempts to talk him into re-enlisting, so this is the avenue they chose.
Stop loss needs to stop.
Army numbers are up, with more enlisting daily due to the economy.
The problem is poor asset management, not numbers.
SGT MCNEIL
ReplyDeletewell i just think its poor leadership on the part his first line leader. ive had two new soldiers over here who never did their bonus papper work and i squared them both away. one of them gave all of is origanal documents to s1 and they were all lost. so i had track down a new ait cert., his origanal contract, and all the papper work he had to fill out again to get his bonus for him. i did that because thats my job. before i deployed i had a soldier who signed up for the college loan repayment and when he got to basic. they told him his loans didnt qualify, they told him he came sign a new contract for the gi bill or get nothing. he was already at basic and that was his whole reason for joining the army. after he got to my unit he found out that his loans did qualify but that since he had signed the new contract he was screwed. thats what our SFC was telling him. i know better and as his leader i took him to legal. his first contract was technically in effect. so the second one didnt count. he got his 60,000 dollar loans payed off. moral of the story is if is first line leader really cared enough to do his job. your son would be taken care of.
You hit the nail on the head SGT.
ReplyDeleteThe Army needs to weed out the dead wood, and promote more conscientious leaders like you.
Asset management. That's what taking care of your assets is all about. As a Sgt myself, and now a business manager, I know, as do you, that our people are our most valuable asset.
Unfortunately in all branches of the service there are individuals who get promoted to positions of power that have no idea how to handle it.
They can't motivate, so they tend try to intimidate.
Most can't even manage their own affairs let alone those of others.
They're the ones that need to go.
Thanks for being a good leader, and
thanks for stopping bye.
Be careful.
Oh my goodness, poor Matt. Your family and Matt are in my prayers!
ReplyDeleteThe way timing is playing out for Christopher, there is a good chance that he will be Stop-Lossed before he has the chance to get out for good. We are so nervous. But I really can't think about that right now at all.
I don't really even have words. But when Matt gets a mailing address, please let me know so I can write to him and share support!
Best wishes for you Dad.
a fairly squared away and pissed off platoon sergeant, or platoon leader/company commander could have the situation resolved fairly quickly. it involves going to unit PAC, and then to finance.
ReplyDeletebut, the trouble is that it takes a team leader and squad leader to first get blown off by PAC, or even finance before someone with more rank will get involved.
for shame.
don't give up. it can be done.
as for the selective stop loss, that's a new one to me. all the dirt bags were corralled from each company in my BN and were thrown into details with the MP's, Cooks, or Trans Companies. After all, it IS about numbers, not skill or character.
I wanted you to know that I stopped by. I'm sorry Matt's been stop-lossed.
ReplyDeleteThanks again Jason.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the loan thing will get ironed out. And I hate to make my son sound like a whiner. Believe me, he isn't.
He isn't happy about not being able to get on with his life, but he will do what he is called to.
Thanks MMs.
Hope you had a great birthday?