(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).
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.
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