Regarding Reenlistment (see previous post)

So of course I went in to talk to the First Sergeant (1SG) about reenlisting. I shared with him my fear of deploying, my discomfort with the amount of workload I would leave on my family, and my lack of satisfaction with my job as a Chaplain's Assistant (CA).

Let's address the latter first. I'm one of 4 guys doing a one-man job, and we don't really have anything to do without a Chaplain. Which we don't have. We do get occasional support from the acting Brigade Chaplain, a Major, who preaches at a Baptist church in a microscopic rural town in the middle of nowhere. He came to drill this month, meeting us at an armory in a small town near his town. We convoyed up in HMMWV's. All 4 Chaplain Assistants were drivers, earning hours toward our military driver's licenses.

We got to the armory around noon, ate TOTM's for lunch, and then had a worship service with the Major. Three people showed up, in addition to the Chaplain assistants. Two of them were somewhat press-ganged into showing by the Chaplain. Then he read to us about Abram/Abraham and fear. Fear of God, he said, is the cure for other fear. And he insisted that we should read the Bible. He also made a very confused statement about Buddhism, regarding the notion of Deity, polytheism, pantheism, etcetera, in response to a question by the new guy in the UMT.

Personally, I don't like his heavy-handed approach. I don't think his job is to convince people of the need to follow his approach to religion, and I don't think he's able to meet the needs of a broad spectrum of soldiers. But, hey, he's a Baptist preacher. What do you expect?

I rode in the convoy with a Sergeant First Class (SFC - E7). I drove and he was my senior driver, keeping me safe. He told me a story about the Major. SFC was in the field during an AT many years back, and the Major showed up with his CA. He asked the SFC what his religious background is, and the SFC said he didn't wanna talk about it. Chaplain pressed him, the SFC told him (he's almost atheist, and prefers not to be told what to think by people who haven't lived his life) and the Chaplain and Chaplain's Assistant ganged up on him, trying to convince him of the error of his ways. It became a shouting conversation. There's friction between them to this day.

So I'm not getting a lot of satisfaction from the CA job. It seems like a do-nothing job, and there's 4 of us not doing the nothing. I got caught standing around doing nothing with my guys by the 1SG a couple of times at the Armory Sunday after we convoyed back. Finally, One of my guys and I took a bag of trash to the dumpster, and then hung out behind the dumpster for a while chatting. I felt icky.

Anyway, back to the 1SG conversation.... I told him I wasn't enjoying the job, and he said "well, let's get you another one." That involved driving to (nearby big city) to get a color-vision test from the National Guard doctor. I didn't pass, but the Lieutenant Colonel (doctor) really wanted me to pass. We tried the Ishihara Plates several times. I could miss 3 and pass, but I kept missing 4. Given better memorization skills, I could have made it, but no-go. He told me to go to a civilan opthamologist or optometrist and get a different test than the plates, since he could tell I have some color vision, but with defects.

So I did. I took the Farnsworth D-15 test 3 times. Finally, the doctor came in to ask me why I wanted the test done. I said it's for a better job. We went over the Ishihara plates again. Had I been trying to get out of something (like going to Iraq), she could have given me a no-go result, but since I was trying for a job, she gave me a go. It was all about which two of the three results to put down.

Now I'm crossing my fingers. Maybe I can get Army training to become a machinist, or a mechanic. That would be good - I would like to be employable again someday, when the kids are all in school.

So maybe I'll be going away again next year to get MOS training. Then we have to figure out who watches the kids. And that's the big one. That's the big one.