Really, Army?

Well, the Army seems to be happy to do things in their own time.  Clearly,  we knew this already.  But today is another good example of that.  The promotion cut off scores came out today.  When points were entered earlier this month, Daniel was around 650.  (That, in case you didn't know, is quite high for his time in service with no deployment points.)  This month the cut off for him to promote was almost 800.  798, I believe.  Nobody from his MOS at E5 in the secondary zone got picked up.  Only two guys in the band field got picked up for E6, and they were both in the primary zone.  So, no huge shocker there, I guess.  But still.  Daniel has been working like crazy this month (he's got about until the 5th of next month to finish what he can) to knock out as many correspondence courses as he can, all of which are worth a certain number of credit hours, which go toward promotion points.  Until next month.  After the October promotion scores come out, the points you can get from correspondence courses will be limited drastically, and all his score will drop.  Big time.  So, deployment will be necessary to promote, since he's got as much education as you can get credit for, he's done already far more courses that you'll be able to get credit for, and deployment, awards (which he's also maxed out, thanks to his being Soldier of the Year for Ft. Jackson and TRADOC three years ago), and PT will be about the only things that will help someone in his situation get picked up.

Which brings me to the next piece of news.  What I alluded to yesterday is that we were offered and agreed to "lock in" our next assignment.  It was one of our top choices!   Drum roll please....next summer, sometime, we are expecting to go to...Ft. Carson!  Yay!  (For those that don't know, or have to google it, Ft. Carson is right outside of Colorado Springs, CO.)  We wanted to go there because they have a division band, which are the only bands that deploy.  (So far, we've been part of two bands that belong to Training and Doctrine bases - TRADOC - which are non-deploying bands.)  Deployments there, right now, for the band, are done in a easier way to handle, I think.  Small ensembles are deployed for six months at a time and just rotate out.  We can do that.  No 15 month deployment, please!

BUT.  Here's where I'm really feeling the "Really, Army!?" feeling today.  We were offered the Ft. Carson spot, and told the guy in charge we wanted to "lock it in."  (Basically, that means it's about as sure as it can be without paper orders in our hands.)  So, Daniel finds out today that the guy isn't able to lock us in because the Army still has a hold on Daniel because he was applying for OCS.  Basically, there's some code attached to Daniel's name that prevents anyone from giving him orders in case he'd been selected for OCS, so he isn't moved before he goes.  Well, he wasn't selected, as we've established, but now he's got to help figure out this mess of how to get them to take that code away so that the guy in DC can give us the spot at Ft. Carson.  Thankfully, the SGM here and the guy in DC both seem to think it can be resolved quickly and that we shouldn't have any trouble getting it worked out and locking in our spot.  It also seems that the guy in DC is the only one who works on "moving the chess pieces," as I not-so-affectionately call this process, and he's not going to put anybody else in that spot at this point.  Hopefully, by the time Daniel comes home today he'll be able to tell me it's worked out.

So, that's the latest of the latest.  I did talk to our social worker at Bethany today, too, about the "what ifs" as far as adoption with regards to our going to CO.  Basically, I'm just praying and begging God that we'll get our baby SOON, because if we don't, we might have to start completely over or move one by one, which are both clearly less than ideal.  I'm not freaking out and I am feeling much better about things.  Nine months to 11 months is plenty of time...but...the sooner the better, in my book.

(DISCLAIMER:  I realize there are a lot of acronyms in this post and those that aren't Army oriented, might find it confusing.  I'll be happy to help explain anything you didn't get.  Sorry about that.)

(Note to my VA friends:  I am NOT excited to know that I have to expect to leave you all.  We knew this would come eventually, and I'm just thankful that we have plenty of advance warning - we can get in lots of time together - and that we'll be able to spend the rest of this school year with you. )