I've been posting a LOT about home school, so I thought I'd do an Army-ish update. As you know, we are currently at a "school" assignment. It's about a nine month course and Soldier's class is conveniently synced with the traditional school year. Students roll into town in July, class starts in August, graduation is in early June and everyone leaves town by the end of June.
In terms of his career, this is an important assignment and a great opportunity for professional development. In fact, military friends (Soldiers and Spouses alike) raved about this assignment and called it :the BEST year of their life. First of all, I love all my friends, but I really, really HOPE that a year of Army schooling is not the Best Year of My Life. Secondly, I began to hear this phrase so much that it felt like a punchline to a joke I didn't know yet.
As of right now, I'm thinking I was right and that I've figured out the joke. This is NOT the best year of our lives and maybe not even the best year of our Army life. So far, this year is kind of a bummer. (Though, I keep getting told that it gets better. We'll see if I still feel the same way in January or March.) In fact, I'm very discouraged on Army Life right now and Soldier's Army career, which is a HUGE switch for me. (See the blog title, yeah, exactly.) But, here's what I'm seeing:
1. The Army is becoming very competitive, which is great in some ways. And horrible in other ways. Soldiers are being told going into this course that if they are not the #1 ranked officer in their OERs, they should say good-bye to dreams of battalion commands and careers beyond the next year or two.
2. The party line for this school is "School comes first, then your family, then hobbies/education/etc." I think MANY of us that have gone through multiple deployments will have a problem with this. YES, school is important but, seriously, no one is going to die if someone misses a class or a test. I've seen this played out in several ways. Soldier was denied a pass to travel and pick up my car when it arrived because repeating Sexual Harassment training for the second time in six monhts was more urgent. Families that are entitled to 10 days of Paternity Leave for adoption or the birth of a child are being told "Well, legally, we're required to give you the time off. But you still have to complete all of your assignments and tests on time, not late and not early." Overall, we are getting the message that family is NOT a priority.
3. Future assignments are a hot button topic. We (the spouses) all know that the next key assignment involves long hours, sleeping on cots in the office and Blackberries ringing at all hours of the night. We've JUST come off of two really busy jobs, deployments, plus having a bunch of babies. Germany was supposed to be our "break" and that never materialized in our whirlwind semester abroad.
Overall, the tone and feeling I'm getting is a retro one: "If the Army wanted you to have a family, you would have been issued one." I don't like what this forecasts for Soldier's future Army Career and, quite honestly, it has me questioning whether or not Army Life is worth it. Job Stability, health care benefits, retirement plans were all key benefits to staying in the Army, but all of these have been threatened recently due to political circumstances. Now, the outlook for our family is looking pretty bleak, too. I'm rally starting to wonder if our friends that have ETS'd made the better choice.
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