Done With the Navy

Wow, it's been almost a week since my last post and I'm happy to report that I really haven't felt any "blog-separation anxiety." It's just been one busy week. My wife, who is in the Navy, has been up for new orders and unfortunately we were only given two options: Japan and Guam. I wouldn't mind going to Japan but the thought of being stuck on a small island like Guam frankly isn't all that appealing. On the flip side Mel doesn't really want to go back to Japan after having been stationed there for three years already. But everything's relative; she and I really couldn't be too choosy considering the thousands of soldiers who are separated from their families for extended periods while risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. We sure do have a lot to be thankful for.

So which one will it be? Turns out it's going to be neither. This is due to the fact that Japan has a no-pet policy and Guam requires a 120-day quarantine, at a cost of about $15 a day (which works out to around $1800 per animal). They are basically saying , "Don't bring any pets to Guam." So whether we had one cat or six, it's just not going to work; the money's ridiculous and we feel it would be pretty unfair to put an animal through that kind of trauma. An option we (briefly) considered was me staying here and flying out to see her every few months, but that wasn't too appealing, either.

So it looks like my wife is just going to go ahead and get out of the Navy at the end of next year and the good news is that she in all likelihood will be able to stay put here in Jacksonville for the duration. For a while it looked like she would have to go up to Norfolk this fall for a year at sea, but as she desperately needs to have surgery on bunions in both feet she will stay here to convalesce and do limited duty.

Mel actually would like to stay in the Navy and make a career of it, but unfortunately the good ol' military bureaucracy has been working against her (as it often does). Case in point: My wife has a Lithographer (LI) rating (job) and recently tried to switch to the Draftsman (DM) rating, which is actually her core specialty and was what she signed on to do in the first place (but the Navy saw fit to do otherwise). She was denied—not because she wasn't qualified (she has a degree in Graphic Design)—but because she basically ranks too high. She was told the DM rating has "too many" First Class Petty Officers already. If she'd been a Second Class or below it would have been no problem. Okay, fair enough. But here's where the bureaucracy comes in: those two ratings are merging together into one rating next year! So what difference does it make if she becomes a DM now? It's just classic red tape.

The real shame of it is the fact that there was an awesome DM billet (posting) available in Rota, Spain, which allowed pets and we would have loved, but of course she couldn't apply for it as an LI. Grrrr.

I keep reminding myself that we really can't complain too loudly considering the sacrifices being made by our soldiers in the Middle East. It's just a little frustrating.

The good news in the end is that my wife will get out into the civilian world (away from things that go "BANG!" and all their attendant risks) and into a real career as a commercial artist. And I think that's just fabulous.

As a brief aside, here's a satellite photo of NAS Jacksonville, where my wife and I work.