2004-09-09 - 4:22 p.m.
It just gets better every day......yesterday everyone in my unit was told that anyone who doesn't re-enlist by Sept. 24th will be given orders to go to a unit that is already under stop-loss and getting ready to deploy.
A stop-loss is when a unit gets locked down and none of the soldiers in it are allowed to ETS (end term of service, aka get the fuck out) or PCS (permanent change of station, i.e. moving from Ft Drum to Ft Hood). So, what they're saying is that if you don't re-enlist they're just going to send you to a unit you can't leave so you'll be stuck in anyway.
I'm calling their fuckin bluff.
What the assholes here don't realize is that many of us have friends that are in the army outside of Ft. Carson, and have talked to people in other units. The army has been pulling the same shit all over the country, and at every other post they've done it at it turned out to be bullshit. They try to sucker you into re-enlisting with a $15k bonus and lies about how if you don't do it then you're going back to Iraq.
So of course you may as well sign the dotted line and get a nice little bonus out of it, right?
And then begins the head games for soldiers who don't want to re-enlist, such as myself. Your chain of command starts talking to you about your future and what you're going to do when you get out.
I mean, what job can you possibly find that's better than the Army, right? You're never gonna make better pay than you do right now.....oops, wait a second....I made twice as much money as I do right now when I was 16 years old.
And then there's the unbeatable benefits you get from the Army....full medical and dental coverage....but oh..no....nevermind the fact that unless you're on your fucking deathbed you have to be screened by a few dozen fucking middlemen before you can see a doctor when you're sick or injured. And by the way, if you have a serious injury that prevents you from performing to the fullest, you're chain of command immediately assumes that you're faking it and treats you like a sack of shit. And to top it all off, go ahead and try using Army medical care to take care of a knee that hurts so fucking bad that you have to use your arms to pull yourself up the stairs to your room....trust me, it's not going to happen. Army medical personnell have one solution for everything that could possibly happen to you....Motrin and fucking water.
Then there's your "30 days of paid vacation" each year. How many jobs in the civilian world will offer you that? Sweet fuckin deal, huh? Oh...wait...that's right.......you take days off when your chain of command tells you to, and you take however many off that they tell you to. You have no say at all regarding your "30 days vacation".
Another soldier brought up a very interesting point to me a few days ago. When you first go talk to the recruiters and look at joining the military, it's all about how much you'll benefit from your service after your time is up. The Army will give you job experience, money for college, build your future. But then when the time comes for you to get out their tone drasticallly changes. Suddenly it's all about how you may as well re-enlist cause you never have any hope of doing anything with your life other than flipping burgers.
Every single day I ask myself what the fuck I was thinking when I signed that piece of paper. Our supposedly organized and effective military is the exact opposite. There is little to no organization in anything we do, the leadership in the military is completely incompetent. The Army has a nasty habit of giving you a task to do without the time or means to accomplish it, and their solution to the problem is, "you're a soldier, make it happen". Operation Iraqi Freedom would be one of those tasks. Go kill the enemy, but we're not going to give you ammo to do it. Figure it out, soldier. By the way, all the soldiers staying back here in Kuwait who will never see the enemy are going to have more food, water, and ammo than they know what to do with. Have Fun!!
I've seen good men die, come within inches of death myself more times than I could possibly count, and dealt with an endless amount of bullshit back here on Ft Carson that would probably make a lot of people kill themselves....but these worthless pieces of shit still have the audacity to go as far as threatening me about re-enlistment.
Oh...and it still gets a little bit better. On Monday my unit is doing an inspection of all of the equipment that we've been issued since coming in the Army. Uniforms, rucksacks, canteens, everything. Much of this equipment was lost or destroying while in Iraq, so guess what? I get to take my already below poverty level salary and use it to buy several hundred dollars worth of military equipment that was lost during FUCKING WAR!!!! The Army is supposed to replace all this equipment for soldiers...but conveniently enough you have to work during the only hours that you can go to CIF (central issue facility) and get it replaced. Ooops, guess you're gonna have to buy it....sucker.
This could go on quite a bit longer....but fuck it, I'm done. Simply put, the American Army is an incompetent, unorganized force built on lies and propaganda. To anyone reading this, if you know someone interested in the military make sure they talk to real soldiers and not recruiters before making their decision. I'm confident that most will find that the military is very far from the best option for them.
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