Another Amazing, Albeit Sad, Story...

I joined the Army Reserves out of high school to help pay for college. I got lucky and ended up in a section that was full of some of the greatest people ever and even now, 30 years later, I still keep in touch with many of them regularly. One of them was a guy named Jay Cobb; he was a sergeant from Plymouth, NH, a laid back Deadhead with a quick, sardonic wit. As per usual these days, we reconnected on Facebook several years back and still chat every so often. 

A month or so ago, Jay messaged and said he had an Army friend who had recently arrived here on Camp Humphreys and as everyone who arrives here does, she was in quarantine for two weeks. He said she was suffering from the horrible Army food they were feeding her and asked if I might be willing to bring her some of the food I had been cooking. Of course I said no problem because, well, that's just the kind of guy I am. 

I quickly discovered that Jay's friend - Ayla Papp is her name, which I think might be the coolest name EVER - is a complete foodie. She was so appreciative of the food that both Virginia and I made for her in quarantine that we started talking constantly about food, recipes, etc. and she shared some pics of her own dishes that just looked incredible and it became obvious that she is my spirit animal...it turns out she is from Louisiana and she vowed that when she got out of quarantine, she would come make her special homemade gumbo for us. This pleased me greatly as I absolutely love cajun food - jambalaya, red beans and rice, etouffé, crawfish bread...and ESPECIALLY gumbo. Well, today was that day. Ayla Papp (I call her Ayla-Papp because it's just such a cool first and last name combination) came over and made for us her special homemade gumbo with chicken and andouille sausage. And it...was...glorious. 

Oh, but there is more to this story. Much, much more. First, let's see the pics of the gumbo, then I'll deliver the second, more incredible part of the story:

Ayla Papp just HAD to wear my Italian apron...

She did a dry roux since the sausage already had a high fat content

She said the dry roux should achieve the color of chocolate and this looks like it did!

She added the roux to the meat mixture, added water and stirred it all together

Then let it "simmah down" for a long time...

The finished product, served over rice. So. Freaking. Delicious. AUTHENTIC Cajun flavors, it was just so good. 

So now we come to the incredible part of the story...

Those of you who have known me for a while know that one of my best friends in the world was killed in the Fort Hood shooting back in April of 2014. His name was SFC Danny Ferguson and he was extremely close to us and especially to Xavier in particular. I won't go into the whole story here but for anyone who doesn't know the history, here is the blog post I wrote telling the whole story; if you don't know it, you should read it before reading this story any further: 

Remembering SFC Daniel "Fergusi" Ferguson

After we finished eating, we were having a nice conversation about everything under the sun and at one point, Ayla Papp mentioned that her husband is back in the US because he's a police officer, I asked whereabouts and she said Killeen, which is where Fort Hood (Texas) is. I cannot hear the name Fort Hood without immediately thinking of the senseless shooting that took my friend's life and so I asked her how long she had been stationed there. She told me, I quickly did the math in my head and then looked at Virginia and said "OMG, I think she was there when it happened...". I asked her about the shooting and to my shock, she was not just there, she was in Fergusi's unit. I shared with her the story of our friendship with Fergusi and we all just sort of sat there, in awe of the crazy circumstances that had brought us together. As I spoke about Fergusi I got choked up as I always do when I talk about him and I could feel the goddamned tears welling up in my eyes as they always do so I kept it short but I just can't believe that this new person that we had met almost by chance had a direct connection to our Fergusi. I swear, I'm actually welling up again just thinking about it...

It really is a small world. And an even smaller Army...    

Reliving a Decision That Changed My Life, Part 5: The Fallout

(To start at Part 1, CLICK HERE)


The weeks and months that followed were very difficult ones. By this time, Col Carpenter had moved on to a new job with V Corps in Heidelberg, Germany so I was glad I did not have to face him. MAJ Ostlund had since moved back down to the 173rd Airborne Brigade on base and one fateful night after work I decided to stop in at the on base club for a beer before heading home and it just so happened that several officers from the 173rd were having a gathering. As I sat down at the bar, MAJ Ostlund saw me and came right over to say hi and ask about the OTS packet. I explained what had happened, said I guess it just wasn't in the cards for me and that I would be getting out of the Army at the end of the year and transferring to a civilian job somewhere. He said he understood, that he empathized with my situation and he was actually pretty cool about it but the disappointment in his eyes was unmistakable and it was guilt racking, almost as if I'd let my own father down. I left that night feeling pretty shitty but I decided not to wallow in it. Instead it was time to focus on life after the Army. I thought it would be a good idea to get out of Europe and start over somewhere and Korea was my number one choice for a couple reasons. First, my wife Virginia was from the Philippines and she had lived in Hong Kong (where we met) for 10 years; I had taken a couple trips there and I was completely enamored with Hong Kong and I was really taken with Asian culture, food, etc. so living and working in Asia was very attractive to me. Korea was the only place that I knew of in Asia where the Army had a major presence so I figured it was my best shot. I didn't know anyone there so I literally just started calling any phone numbers I could find for bases there and asking if anyone knew of any JOPES jobs on the Peninsula. I finally managed to get in touch with a civilian who was pretty much the entire JOPES presence there at the time and she had no intention of leaving anytime soon so I figured I was destined to stay in Europe. Staying in Italy was certainly not a bad second choice after all...

My first year in Italy as a civilian was a glorious one; as luck would have it, I ended up landing a job as a contractor doing the same job I had been doing as a sergeant but for several times the pay (and no shining boots!) and let me tell you, I wasted no time transitioning to post-Army life. There is a little known rule that upon separating from the military, a man must let his hair get longer and he must grow some facial hair. I happily complied. I had more time, more freedom and more money than I'd ever had so I was able to really explore a passion that I'd acquired in my time there as a soldier and I became a wannabe oenophile (ie, a wine guy).

My first year as a civilian in Italy: new facial hair and a whole lot of vino

A little over a year later, the contract I was working under was about to be cut so I had to start looking for a new job. After a brief flirtation with another contract job in Hawaii, I ended up landing a job at the Movement Operation Center (MOC) with US Army Europe in Heidelberg, Germany, the same place and people I'd been working with for the previous six years. I was hired as a DoD Civilian, GS11 which was a decent starting point. When I was active duty I'd worked with a couple of GS12s and to me, that seemed like the ultimate goal for me as a civilian so I was content that my decision to leave the military and become a civilian was indeed paying off. On top of that, we were living in one of the most absolutely stunningly beautiful cities in the entire world in Heidelberg and since DoD civilians received a large housing stipend, we had a huge place right on the main drag. Working at the MOC was the perfect starting point for me as I worked with some of the best and brightest people in my field and I learned a ton from them. To this day, I have never worked with a better group of people as a DoD civilian and many of them I am still close friends with to this day.

The USAREUR MOC: Best group of people I have ever worked with as a DoD civilian

Alas, as much as I loved Heidelberg, I missed Italy immensely and in 2008, after two great years at the MOC, I was able to transfer back to my beloved Vicenza as the lead JOPES person for the newly stood up US Army Africa. This was a big step in my career as suddenly I was a one man show in charge of an Army Service Component Command and I thrived in the position. Eventually I was promoted to GS12, something I had dreamt about when I was toiling away as a lowly buck sergeant. I had a great job, I was in Italy which had become home to me over the years, I was financially secure and we even bought a small beach house near Virginia's family in the Philippines where we vacationed every summer. Life was grand...which meant something had to give. And sure enough, on May 1st, 2013, tragedy struck. That was the day I was called into the division chief's office and notified that I was a victim of the despicable, disgusting, illegal government plot to claw back housing allowances from a a select group of DoD civilians who they claimed received the benefit in error and that I suddenly owed the government a couple hundred thousand dollars. I won't go into the matter in this story for brevity's sake but suffice to say that those who knew me and knew what happened will remember what a harrowing nightmare the following year became for me and my entire family. Perhaps the worst part of the whole affair was that it forced me to leave Italy against my will. 

Being awarded the Civilian Service Achievement Medal at my farewell luncheon as I prepared to leave Italy in 2014

The government forced me to leave Europe and go back to the US and they saw fit to transfer me to a position with US Army Central (ARCENT). For most of its existence, ARCENT had been located at Ft McPherson in Atlanta, Georgia however a few years prior they had closed McPherson and moved ARCENT HQ to Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, SC, a rural area about an hour east of Columbia. I went to Europe in 1998 as a soldier and left 16 long years later as a civilian so to say that going to rural South Carolina was a culture shock would be a tremendous understatement. Especially after leaving Italy under the circumstances that I did, my time at ARCENT was complete misery. DoD civilians must remain back in the US for a minimum of two years before going back to an overseas position and so as soon as my two year mark was up at ARCENT, I started applying for overseas positions. Nothing was coming through for me in the JOPES field and then one day I saw a position back in Vicenza that was kind of, sort of like JOPES (I thought), so I applied and I got it. After almost three years in the US, we headed back home to Vicenza and life started getting good again. 

One major lesson I have learned about life as a DoD civilian is that everything is all about timing. You never know when job opportunities will appear and usually it happens at the worst possible time. And so it was that after one year back in Italy, the civilian job that I'd coveted since getting out of the Army way back in 2004 finally became open and available to me. My first thought was that I could not possibly entertain the thought of leaving my beloved Italy after being back only 1 year. Virginia agreed - she was tired of moving she said. However I could not stop thinking that this opportunity would never come up again in my career so I would regret turning it down for the rest of my life. I somehow managed to convince her and after a year in Italy, my career moved to Korea. 

Moving to Korea turned out to be a great move for my career, at least at first. For a year and a half it was absolutely the best job I'd ever had in my DoD civilian career. It has been the most difficult by far but I've excelled at it and at times have felt as if this place has been the pinnacle of my career. I had been recognized for my efforts with cash awards as well as the highly regarded Joint Civilian Service Achievement Award. I loved the job in Korea so much that I had intended to request an extension and stay here as long as I possibly could...

My first year on the job in Korea saw me receive the Joint Civilian Service Achievement Award for the first time in my career. It was a very proud moment.

Sadly, things went downhill here around the time that the COVID crisis began and have devolved to the point where I will soon be moving on earlier than expected. As fate would have it, I am headed back to where it all began back in 2006, the USAREUR MOC, only this time it will be in Wiesbaden, Germany rather than Heidelberg as they have moved. We are all very excited about going back to the Vaterland and seeing what the new chapter of my civilian career will bring...

I think a lot about that fateful decision I made back in 2004. Up until the LQA nightmare in 2013, I never once regretted the decision to pursue a civilian career rather than wait a year and go to Air Force OTS. However, the years since then have often found me wondering what if. What if I had had the foresight to see the big picture all those years ago? I would have retired a couple years ago from active duty as a Major with a nice fat retirement pension and my family and I would be very well off the rest of my days and into retirement. If I decided to stay in longer, I'd probably even have made LTC by now. It's hard not to have regrets, especially when all these years later I'm still a GS12 and still having to put up with bs on a daily basis because I have no other options. 

On the other hand, look at the career I've had: Germany, Italy, Korea...in the end, this is the life I've always wanted. I wouldn't trade it for anything. 

Fin.

Reliving a Decision That Changed My Life, Part 4

(To start at Part 1, CLICK HERE)


With the powerful endorsement from BG Lessel in my possession, combined with the letter of recommendation from MG Wagner, I thought sure that I was on my way. I didn't see anything that could possibly get in my way or derail my plans...in the end the one thing that did me in was one simple piece of paper, the one thing that should have been the easiest to acquire.

As I reviewed my packet, I noticed that I was missing one thing: the conditional release form from the Army. Since I was technically still under contract with the Army, my packet had to include a form from the Army personnel office that basically said "If the soldier is accepted to Air Force Officer Training School, the US Army will release him from his contract with us." It was just a formality, really., and it should have been the easiest thing in the world to do however in typical Army fashion, they made the simple into the near impossible. It took me a couple months to even find a point of contact to request the form from, I had to start with my local personnel office and then work it all the way up until I finally received the name of the person who processed the form that I needed. According to my notes, it had been a few months since I sent the official request yet I had not received anything. I guess I just got so wrapped up in trying to get my letters of recommendation, school transcripts and everything else that I hadn't noticed that I was still missing that one simple form. Time was running out and the deadline for submission of my packet was only about two months away so I started scrambling. I managed to get the phone number and email of the Army Sergeant Major who was supposed to send me the form and I called him and emailed at least once a day for the next several weeks with no reply. I tried calling other numbers that I could find but ran into constant dead ends. At one point I actually got a hold of one person who said he sort of knew the SGM and that he'd "give him the message" but I still never heard back. I could not figure out what was going on...was this guy on extended leave? Had he moved to a different job? Was he dead?! Why was I getting no response? I tried everything I could think to do short of getting on a plane and flying to the Pentagon to personally track this guy down but kept coming up empty.

I was less than two weeks away and panicking...HARD. And then it happened. Some time in mid January the recruiter from Aviano called me and said "I've got some bad news for you...the Air Force just filled all the OTS slots for the year so you'll have to wait til next year to submit your packet."

Nine days. The deadline to submit my packet was a mere nine days away. I was completely crushed, devastated, defeated. For once, I finally had a goal, a mission, I knew what I wanted and I went after it with everything I had and I came up short. Nine days changed the entire course of my life.

So what was my next move? I'd formulated a plan when I started the OTS packet process the year prior. My ETS (End of Time in Service, the day your enlistment ends) date was December 2004. The OTS packet deadline was in January 2004. As I saw it, I had two options when I began the process: either go to OTS and finish my career as an Air Force Officer or, failing that, get out of the Army and parlay my JOPES experience into a high paying civilian job. After missing out on what I saw as my only shot at OTS, I decided I would indeed just spend the remaining 10-11 months of my enlistment looking for a civilian job. I contacted the recruiter and informed him that I didn't want to wait an entire year to submit my packet and he tried really hard to get me to change my mind:

"Let me explain something to you...all of the packets we submit are in plain brown envelopes with a cover sheet attached. That cover sheet is a checklist of all the documents and forms that required, to ensure that nothing is missing. One of the boxes on that sheet says 'General Officer Recommendation' and if that box is checked, your packet goes right to the top of the pile...you have TWO General Officer recommendations! So trust me, you will be one of the very first people accepted once they see that! Just wait a year and submit, you are guaranteed!". He was right but I was so disappointed that I could not see the forest through all of the trees. All I could see was that I was about to turn 33 years old. If I waited a year, I would be turning 34 which meant that if I got accepted, by the time I graduated OTS and pinned on 2LT (the lowest officer rank), I would be 35 years old. Of course looking back on it now 35 still seems young but considering that most officers are pinning on 2LT around 22 years old, I just could not fathom being a 35 year old 'Butterbar".

I'd made my choice and was sticking with it. I was done with the military. 


(To go to Part 5, CLICK HERE)