In the Blink of an Eye

Yesterday was a day of incredibly good news. My relief has not only been named, but he is part of the group of unfortunates who are already in country. This Air Force captain should be arriving at Chez Rusty on September 30. If all goes well, I could be on a plane home October 10 and if all goes less than well October 16. (Let’s not discuss worse than that.) Either way, that is a win for the home team because I was supposed to be home around 22 November. There have been rumors about for about ten days now. Today it is official.

In about two weeks I could be leaving Rusty instead of eight. That means that I could have four or five weeks at home that I thought were gone – an amazingly wonderful occurrence no matter how you slice it. It is also sobering and indicative of this entire IA process. This all started when I came back from a wonderful Thanksgiving with my mom’s family in Indianapolis and found an email waiting for me that hinted that an IA was in the offing. As the week went on rumors increased, but no word was passed. Then on December 7 at 1543, exactly sixty-five years to the minute as the USS Arizona was sinking in Pearl Harbor (too much drama alert), I got confirmation that I was the chosen one. Just like that almost a year of my life was gone. It wasn’t fair. There wasn’t any ceremony or gravity like I at some level expect at losing so much. Only my first level boss even told me or said good-bye in person. 2007 was just gone. Talk about life being like grass that is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire.

When something like that happens you want to scream to the world that as an American I have a right to fair treatment. Maybe 2% of the Navy gets sent over here, and the number of junior officers with viable careers over here is much smaller. Most Navy people over here on IA’s are O-4’s who haven’t been selected for command and are hoping for the extra push to make O-5 or chiefs hoping to break out for senior chief. There are quite a few people from non-deploying Navy communities for whom this is one year away from home out of the past ten of their career and when they are done they will retire with four more on shore. Most of the junior officers in my job are pilots who HAVE some background in what I’m doing and have three years on shore so their tour is about 30% of their shore duty. My orders were for two year. They wanted 50% of my shore duty, and I had plans that I was actively pursuing to stay in the Navy. The pilot JO’s would still have two years, whole shore tour length, even after they finished. There were a hundred reasons I shouldn’t have been chosen. The bottom line is that this is not fair.

If there is one thing I don’t like it is reality that isn’t the way it should be. When Kate and I went to a marriage seminar once, the speaker said that most unhappiness in a marriage comes from people dwelling on how things should be instead of being thankful for how things are. Fortunately, I have a nearly perfect wife who gives me nothing to be unhappy about, but it is super-easy to find those things in the Navy. They irk me because they are wrong and could be righted. Even now, the Task Force IA has put out guidance about how this jaunt in the desert should positively affect my career, but my detailer has essentially said “Sorry, Charlie,” on that one. Could be fixed easily, but it won’t be. It is a detailer doing what he can instead of what he should, and that is just the way of life.

So today I am on the good side of unfair. It is completely unfair that I get to go home at eight months instead of the required nine while other people are staying for three longer than originally planned. It is arbitrary, and just like that five weeks of my life are given back. I’d like to think that someone at BUPERs looked at my case and appreciated me as a person, but it was nothing like that at the human level. It just happened. No pomp or circumstance, no validation of my service and suffering. Just the way things work out. Today it is a flower quickly fading; a year ago it was grass to the furnace.

Maybe I’m close enough to the end where I can get safely philosophical, point out lessons learned, and impute some meaning to this nonsense that is 2007. If there is any one thing I can say I’ve confirmed for certain it is that life is unfair mostly in bad ways but also in some good way. The bad unfairness that I have gotten is certainly not as terrible as the random unfairness that many soldiers and there families have experienced while I’ve been here, but it is more terrible than the unfairness that the guys back home are complaining about even as I’m typing. Bad stuff happens in this fallen world we live in, and we do not have a right to better. To expect any less is unrealistic and to dwell on it is to sell peace of mind too cheaply. Good stuff happens, too, which is equally unfair and undeserved. Maybe this time I’ve learned enough to be thankful for the good instead of thinking it is my due. I’m coming home soon.