Monday, December 12, 2011

Rendezvous with Destiny!


I did it again (it took all of my self-restraint not to begin that sentence with "oops"). Switched from 1ID to 82 to ... 101. I'd been looking to get out of the 82nd once I realized how my deployment would line up - if I went through Ranger School on my first try, and hopped straight into Airborne (this is based on a hypothetical alternate universe where Headquarters Company becomes efficient and helpful while I'm at Ranger), there would still only be a maximum of four months left in the deployment, making it less likely that I'd get a platoon there (deployed with no platoon means staff work ... just in another country).

And if I
did recycle Ranger School, I'd have to kiss Afghanistan goodbye. And then I would have been studying all this Dari and Pashto for nothing. Damn the military-linguistic complex.

So I looked to the next unit on my wish list, the 101st Airborne (Air Assault (it's not actually Airborne any more (but they can't change the name because the WWII vets get mad (the
Band of Brothers guys)))). Every brigade deploying, and a fine unit to boot. The branch manager said he couldn't get me in without a by-name request. So I emailed a very nice letter to an S1 with the usual bits (Pathfinder, PT score, favorable comments from ex-girlfriends). And got my orders changed the next day.

I'm now set to deploy in the Fall, which means I have ample time to recycle Ranger School (which is not my intention, but spend a week at Benning and you'll hear enough horror stories that you begin to doubt that anyone has ever graduated Ranger School, ever) and get into other training schools.

I won't be a paratrooper, but I will get to go to Afghanistan, be in the only existing Air Assault unit, and live a short drive from Nashville (I've started listening to country music to prepare myself).

Mostly, I think I'm just excited to know that I will be one of a very select group of Americans who know how to spell both "lieutenant" and "rendezvous."

1 comment:

  1. Congrats, LT, I don't know how you manage pull this off every time...

    Watching that video, I can't imagine a harsher juxtaposition between lyrics and the music they're set to than that. That was just painful.

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