Oh yeah...

I did forget to mention that while I was sitting there listening to the people talk about missions and what not, I did think about how grateful I was for everyone in my life who has gone on a mission. I have been so blessed by my friends and loved ones who have served, and even though I wasn't related to them in any way, I know that my life was enriched by their service. Both while they were on their missions, and afterwords from the example they provided and the wisdom they gained and shared. So I'm very pro-mission, and am looking forward quite a bit to the day I can take my wife (when I get one of those, I wonder what the policy is on single old dudes going), and serve a mission. I do know that someday, I will be able to serve the Lord in a capacity that I will at least be able to feel good about myself while I'm doing it.

The MTC (the special extended version)

I dropped my friend Derrick off at the MTC this afternoon. He's on his way to a mission in France, and I was excited to see him go. This was my third time being in the MTC, and each time, I was the one leaving the missionary. The MTC and I have quite the history together.

When I was 19, when most normal Mormon boys head off to serve their two year missions, I was out screwing around doing my own thing. I didn't have my act together, and I realized it. So partly to get my life together, and partly to earn money to serve a mission, I joined the Army Reserves. When I finally had my life straight, I put my mission papers in, and waited. Then, on a Tuesday night I got a phone call from my Army unit. I was told that we were going to war, and I we were leaving Friday morning. Soooo, no mission for me. When I first went overseas I had given up on going on a mission, ever. Then I met my brother Caleb (no, he's not really my brother, but he's close enough) and he was so excited about the Gospel that it encouraged me to have the desire to serve a mission when I got home. He had actually had his mission call to South Africa and was to report to the MTC, then he got called up a few weeks before his MTC report date. Talk about close...

After coming home and adjusting to being back, I looked at submitting my paperwork again. I approached the Army about going, and after hitting several brick walls, I found that I had several options. Initially the Army didn't want to let me go, and I was worried because they had actually stopped Caleb from going once he got back and tried to submit his paperwork again. But I found a few loopholes eventually.

The first option was that I could go on my mission, but my records would be transferred into a place where units heading overseas would look to fill their personnel shortages. People in this particular place were available for another full tour, which at that time was 18 months overseas, no matter if they had just come back. There was a study done on the number and jobs of the people pulled out of this place. Over a 3 month period, they had pulled 1600 people, and some 600 of them had been in my job field. 800 more had been in Caleb's job field, so that was probably why they wouldn't let him go on a mission. I talked to the Church's military liaison and the military personnel in charge of those records, and between the two I gathered I would last about 2-4 weeks. So that would mean possibly 1-3 weeks in the MTC before I was called to do an 18 month tour overseas right after I just did an 8 month tour.

The second option was to basically quit the Army. There was a rule that allowed me to be discharged under Other than Honorable Conditions, which, if I stayed out of trouble for 6 months would turn into an Honorable Discharge. But if during those 6 months I got so much as a speeding ticket, it would be a Dishonorable Discharge, which could potentially ruin my life. The thing that bothered me most was when I signed up for the Army, I gave my word that I would finish it out, I swore an oath, and that's not something that I did lightly. To me, even though the rule existed, I felt like I would be breaking my word. After getting a Priesthood blessing about what I should do, and feeling prompted that I needed to stay in the Army, I chose the first option. I felt if I could just spend one day in the MTC that it would be worth it. I knew that I should still pursue going on a mission though, till I had done all I could to go.

So I submitted my papers once more. I felt good about it this time. I happened to be dating a girl at the time who was also submitting her papers. She got her call the day that I found out that the Army didn't want to let me go. It was a bittersweet day. There were issues with my papers, I had hurt my back pretty badly while I was overseas, and Mission Medical wanted to know more about it. I went through several weeks of going back and forth with Mission Medical and various doctors, trying to get cleared to go. The day I flew out to see my girlfriend off on her mission was the day that I found out that Mission Medical had rejected my application. It was like a punch in the gut.

Taking her to the MTC was hard for me. Not only in seeing her walk away for the last time, but knowing that I wouldn't get to do the same. Well meaning old ladies working at the MTC kept calling me Elder, with my military hair cut and my black suit. Every sweet lady was like a knife in my heart. I went back to West Virginia and watched the guy whom I'd gone to Mission and Temple Prep classes with leave on his mission. It was heart wrenching for me, playing the what-if game. What if I had my act together when I was supposed to go? Why didn't I just leave out my back in my application...

Oh I was bitter... and for some reason I found myself dating girls who were about to put in their papers or who just done so. I didn't look for them, actually it was quite on the contrary. I dated like 5 girls total who went on missions, and served honorably. I was proud of each of them, and jealous too. They were doing something that I wouldn't be able to do for myself. Something that I had worked so hard to do. I felt I had jumped through every hoop that had been presented to me, yet I wasn't allowed to go. I can see now that the Lord was testing me, but still...

I took my best friend Jason to the MTC when his time came, and felt a mixture of emotions. Today I took Derrick to the MTC with 2 other of our friends. I felt a flood of emotions that I thought I had dealt with. I found myself upset with myself that I didn't do better when I was younger, that I didn't resubmit my paperwork and just leave out any mention of my back. Over the years I've felt that I'm behind my peers for various reasons. I was overseas or working for the Army, so I didn't have a degree like most of my school friends, and I wasn't ready when the time came, and when I was ready, I wasn't able to go on a mission like my church friends. I felt I lacked the knowledge that they all had gained, and for me, that's the worst kind of being behind.

I don't know if I can accurately explain how I felt today. It was a mixture of grief, pain, jealously, pride in Derrick and all the rest of my friends, determination to go with my wife when I'm older... I got emotional. That was one of the few times in life where you can really understand that you missed out on something truly great. During the time there today, it was said that as missionaries you get 18 months or 2 years to serve, and the rest of your life to think about it. Or about how you didn't serve.

I realize that my calling in life lies in other areas, more specifically the Army. I don't understand how the Lord's plan for me works, or why I wasn't able to go on a mission when I had done everything Mission Medical had asked me to. I don't know why I was supposed to stay in the Army. I'm just trying to find out. Caring friends try to make me feel better about my service overseas, and I know that in of itself it was a good thing. But I still feel I missed out. It doesn't hurt inside as much as it used to when friends talk about their missions and how much they learned and loved it. I do enjoy hearing about their missions, because i know for them it was a time of great growth and learning. Once more, some old ladies called me Elder and tried to get me to go one particular way, the old men tried to give me directions or what not.

I don't think I'll go back there any time soon. I don't really like the MTC, it reminds me too easily of the failures in my life, despite the successes in other areas.

Quick update

So last night I went with my brother Sam to pick up our other brother Caleb who was flying in from Florida to visit his wife and kids in Boise. I haven't seen Caleb in several years, so it was really nice to get to see him again. He didn't get in till after 11 pm, and I didn't get to bed till almost 1am, with having to wake up at 5am this morning, I'm barely functioning. Later this morning I'm headed to the most hated place to drop my friend Derrick off at the MTC. He's going to Toulouse, France. It's going to be funny, he's got a Southern accent being from Arkansas, and he's going to learn French... I hope they treat him nice. I have no love of the french. I'm still of the opinion that we should have invaded Baghdad by way of Paris.
Went down on Sunday to eat dinner with the married sister who lives in the most hated place, go figure her street address is 666 Center Street (you can't get much worse being in the center of that town with that street number). I had a great time, though I feel kinda guilty about eating their food. She did quite well preparing a meal, and i enjoyed it. I miss spending time with my family.
I'm doing ok, still adjusting to being single and the knowledge that I'm headed for Iraq soon. There's quite a few decisions to be made that I had never thought of before. Where to store my stuff for that year, do I sell my truck, keep it up in Idaho, or lease it to a friend? What to do with my finances, do I invest, if so how much, how much do I spend before on stuff I know I'll need? Where am I going to live when I get home? If I do sell my truck, I'm planning on crashing at my sister's house in the most hated place and stealing their car for a few days while I find a new vehicle and place to live. They don't know that yet though.

Cool story

I'm trying to break up these posts so they're more bite sized. Maybe if they're smaller, the few people who know about my blog will actually take the time to read them.
I wanted to tell you a cool story that happened while I was gone at WOCS (Warrant Officer Candidate School). Incidentally, did you know that WOCS is one of 4 Officer producing schools in the Military? There's West Point, OCS (Officer Commissioning School), ROTC (the college route) and WOCS. I'd just thought I'd point that out.
But yeah. One night during the first week, my class, all 84 of us (soon to be 83) were sitting in the classroom when our instructor came in to talk to us. He called out two of my classmates, and they left the room. He then told us that one of our classmates who had just left the room, her brother died unexpectedly, and she was going to have to go home and was going to try to make it back before she missed too much training. If she missed more than 72 hours, she's have to start all over, and that was something nobody wanted anyone to ever have to go through. We were still in "Hell Week" where they basically just beat you down from when you wake up till you go to sleep.
It was one of those things that you couldn't have anticipated or predicted. Almost simultaneously everyone in the room reached for their wallets, pulled out money and started passing it forward. In less than 5 minutes we raised almost $1400 for her plane ticket and some flowers for the family. That might seem like a lot of money, and yeah, it is, but when you consider that my plane ticket to there was about $1500, and I flew out of a rather large hub, and she wasn't, well it covered most of her ticket. Seeing that though, it made me almost cry. We barely knew her, but we all were more than willing to make a small sacrifice, without being asked, to help her out.
At the beginning of our training the instructors have one goal. To make us a team. They beat you till you come together, they harp on any perceived division in the group, because joining with each other as one is about the only way you'll make it through the training. After they saw us do that, they tried to question if we were united a few more times, but each time they did, they knew that they were grasping for things to ding us on. We watched the classes behind us struggle greatly with the concept of coming together. The one right behind us were together for 4 weeks when I left and they were still have troubles with it. It's understandable though. At WOCS they're taking a bunch of people who used to be senior NCOs and used to running their own show, and being the hot shot in charge, and placing us all together (I was the exception to the hot shot in charge thing), it normally takes us a while to swallow our pride and learn how to be followers again (I got the following thing down pretty quickly though).
While we were out in the field for a week, something similar happened. A guy's mom was about to pass away from brain cancer. It was expected, but he had hoped that she would be able to live to see him graduate from this training. It really is a big deal, for those of you who don't know. 2% of the US population are in the Military. 2% of that 2% are Warrant Officers. We're a very close group, pretty danged select. No pressure, right? But anyway, since we were in the field, most of us didn't have a whole lot of money, but we still raised over $1000 to help him out. He didn't make it back to us in time to continue training with us, and had to be set back to the class right behind us.
But knowing that there are still people out there who would do just about anything for each other at the drop of a hat is pretty cool. In the Army world, as I'm sure it is in the civilian job world, things can be different. As Enlisted or NCOs, we'd tell our compatriots about something cool they could do to advance their careers, but only after we advanced our own (granted this isn't everybody, just the prevailing attitude). We'd do things to make us look better than everyone else, so we would get promoted and selected for the cool, cushy jobs. Officers, once again, not every last one, will step on everything and anything to get promoted. What feeds these mentalities is the promotion system. They're based off of points, and time in service/ time in rank. Not so much merit. Well the Officers is based more off of merit, so if their yearly reports say they walk on water, then they're more likely to get promoted. The Warrant Officers are also based on merit, but also on open positions and the needs of the Army. We want to get promoted, and quickly if we can, but we're not going to screw over our buddies to get there. I'm just glad that I'm in a position now where I'm hopefully above the more menial and stupid politics.

It's been a while..

Hello everyone, it's been a good while since I've last written. Quite a bit has happened since then, and I could write several blogs about each thing. This is going to be long... First, I went through the Bountiful temple on Feb 11th, along with my sister, my parents and a couple very close friends. It was weird, but good. I was having troubles dealing with it all, but I had some people talk me through it and I'm fine now. Then I went down to Las Vegas to see my little sister get married on Valentine's day. How cliche'. But I took D, and that was quite the enjoyable road trip. I was able to see my entire family, minus my brother and his family. Even my Grandmom showed up! It was really great to see all of them again. We were able to sleep at Shane's (my new brother in law) aunt and uncle's house, and they were so wonderful about taking care of us and helping us get from place to place.
Then on the 24th I flew down to Ft. Rucker, Alabama to attend Warrant Officer training. It's a 5 week course designed to lay the foundation for a bunch of former Non Commissioned Officers to become Warrant Officers. What is a Warrant Officer you say? Basically we're technical experts in our given field, but the past few years we've been asked to branch out and take more responsibility and spill over into the regular O grade officers areas. This course was pretty rough, and very intimidating for myself and almost everyone else there. Its designed that way. I knew I'd be able to handle the physical stuff they threw at us, push ups, and all the other junk. I may not be able to do as much as they wanted me to, but I wasn't going to quit that stuff. The academics weren't going to be an issue either.
The mind games were a bit harder though. Most of the people in my class were Active duty, so they did their jobs all day every day, and had around 10 years of experience. I was a Reservist, so maybe I'd get to do an aspect of my job every other month, and I only had 7 years in. Right off the bat I felt behind. I faced the challenge that Warrant Officers are supposed to be the experts, the ones with all the answers, and I knew that wasn't me. Not yet. It took me a bit to realize that they basically give us a two year trial period before they really expect us to grow into ourselves as Warrants. There was also the issue that as an Officer in the Army, we were expected to have a whole other level of commitment to the Army than we did before. Basically we were "told" that we needed to put the Army before everyone and everything else. I struggled the most with that, because I have seen the Army mess up too many families, and cause too much pain in people's personal lives because it demands quite a bit. In my life, my top 3 priorities are, and I hope always will be God, my friends and family, and lastly, the Army. I knew I wouldn't be able to place the Army first. Maybe at moments, for a few hours a day, it could move up to #2, but not #1. So I took this concern to one of my leaders and laid it out for him. Maybe I was struggling because I'm a Reservist, a part timer in the Army. But if they wanted that level of dedication from me as a Warrant, I didn't think I belonged. He told me that when he was my age, he had placed the Army first, then friends and family, and God may not have even been in the equation. But now that he was older, he found that he had to place his priorities similar to mine, God, friends and family, then the Army. It was such a relief to know that a senior Officer, who I looked up to, and my priorities were in the same place.
While I was there, good and bad things happened. I grew as a leader (I hope) and became more comfortable in knowing that I'll be able to learn my job. I graduated with "honors", called the Commandant's List, meaning I was in the top 20% of my class overall. When we first got there, we started out with 107 people, and by the time we graduated, we were down to 83. I Had set that goal for myself before I left, and I achieved it. Good feeling. And none of the people I tutored for the academics failed any exams that we took, a few came close, but none failed. I made a few really good friends, and made some important contacts. I was able to go to church 3 times during the 5 weeks I was there. I miss being in a family ward, but it was hard for me to be there, realizing that I have no family of my own. Yes yes, I have parents, sisters, friends and such, but you know what I'm talking about. The obvious absence of someone to share my good times and my rough times with was glaring. I found out that my Grandmom had a surgery while I was there, and it didn't go so well, she was in and out of the hospital the last few weeks I was at training. We had two other people in my class who had family members die while they were at this course, so that was on my mind alot. Two days after that, I found out that my unit is headed to Iraq in July, and I'm going with them. Also, D's mood changed while I was gone, and I could tell, even in the letters that she sent. She was trying really hard to be supportive of me while I was gone, but I guess I can read her too well. I asked her if she was going to break up with me when I got home, and yes, she was. And she did. It wasn't something that either of us wanted, quite contrary, but she got the impression that we weren't supposed to be dating anymore, so we did the only thing we could do. And it sucks beyond belief.