Son is back!

**mphellon** · 04-23-2011, 06:18 AM

Outstanding! Glad he's home safe and prayers out for your grandson.

**fstroupe** · 04-23-2011, 07:58 AM

Originally Posted by SGT G

Glad he's home safe. Got my oldest back from Iraq last month. It was the longest 12 months of my life.

This deployment (his third) was different for me. My son is (probably about to be was) a mechanic. He spent most of his deployments in among the safest places in Iraq and Afghanistan, except when he did vehicle recovery or volunteered to drive on a patrol out of sheer boredom. I know most parents won't relate, but honestly, I wasn't worried about him for his 12 months in Iraq, his 15 months in Iraq, and his first 9-10 months in Afghanistan. Of course I know that there is always that possibility, but it didn't worry me.

Four months ago there was some trouble in his unit about alcohol being sent to the guys by their wives. His first sergeant asked him if he had...he wasn't involved in the trouble, nor had he been accused. His roommate (an E7) had and been given a LOR, and the person starting all of the trouble was one of my son's troops.

He liked and respected his 1SG, and is the kind of guy that always tries to do the right thing, so he admitted that his wife had sent him some, and brought his Top a full unopened bottle. He ended up two months later (with no further investigation) getting a field grade article 15 with MAXIMUM punishment. So he was busted from E5 to E4 and as has been done for decades, sent to another unit. (he and I have talked extensively about this, he has the right attitude and will overcome it)

Anyway, since the BCT had all of the mechanics consolidated, he was sent to an infantry line company. He's still young, 25, but spent the previous 5 years working/welding on mostly tracked vehicles and his body is beat to hell. He has spent a significant amount of time on profile for his knees, and actually went to the Ft Campbell hospital while he was on R&R for his back, an injury that started bothering him about two years ago while he was a welder in the 4th ID.

He spent the last couple of months of his deployment lugging a 240 up and down the mountains of Afghanistan.

It was about the longest two months of my life. For the first time, I guess I felt like a military parent is supposed to feel with his child in harm's way. But my fear was mostly over his lack of training, just like the mechs didn't get to train in my day...our battalion mechs were always my buds. Shit, half the time their rifle qualification was pencil-whipped, they never got to do CTT, etc. They seldom ever left the motor pool. Some liked it, but just as many would have liked to at least occasionally trained to be a soldier.

Like a good soldier, he sucked it up and being the person he is, he took it with good cheer. Being a likable guy, and losing his rank for a relatively cool reason, his new teammates accepted him and took care of him.

Dad didn't take it with good cheer. It is one thing to make an untrained support person do the job of a trained 11B out of necessity. It is a totally different thing to do it for punishment. He was on a foot patrol his second day in the unit. He hadn't fired a live round in about a year and had never fired a round in the direction of a breathing target. I don't know if he ever had fired a 240 before, didn't think to ask. Chris is a mechanic with only basic training behind him, having to learn the 11B trade OJT in Afghanistan. Having 5 years in and some rank, he is expected to know what to do. I really didn't know what he knew, mainly that he had never done it before. I was also worried about his getting a bad attitude about the whole thing, his wife is pregnant and 2011 is not a good time to be getting pissed off and leaving the military.

Fortunately, his knees, which he's had trouble with, didn't bother him, and his back, which he has had more trouble with, didn't either. I figure he probably did his back some good from all of the physical workout, which mechanics usually don't get to do. He lost some weight and looks damn good. Last time I talked to him he really hadn't made any kind of decision for his future plans, except that he really didn't want to be a mechanic anymore. I guess being busted to SP4 will probably do him good in that respect, gives him more options for reenlistment.

**recondo82** · 04-23-2011, 08:09 PM

Wow, busted for alcohol? What the hell is our military coming to? Don't they have more important things to worry about? Are we trying to raise an army of pansies? With what our fighting men and women are having to deal with in the Middle East, our military should be providing them with all the alcohol they want. I know in my unit, the First Sergeant would have confiscated it and shared it with the other NCOs.

Anyway, glad that your son is back safe, and prayers outbound for your grandson.

**fstroupe** · 04-25-2011, 03:22 AM

I knew in the back of my head that he was screwed as soon as he was involved, though I was hoping for the best. I can hear his battalion/brigade commander getting ready to sign the Article 15s: "God damn....we've got boys dying left and right and these fucking mechanics are in the rear acting like there isn't a war going on. Fuck 'em!" He says that the CSM is a real ass and was the driving force behind all of the punishment. His roommate's LOR will probably end his career...it was that bad.

Actually I think that is what his First Sergeant had in mind. He readily accepted the bottle and was about to put it away. Chris said "Hey Top, don't you think I ought to pour that out? That is why I brought it to you."

He had become totally and completely unhappy with being a mechanic (like I figured he probably would), and his prospects for reenlistment in anything else looked fairly slim. Actually, he turned down the E6 board a few times because he wanted to find a decent job before he reenlisted, and E6 would have surely locked him into maintenance for the rest of his career, or at least he felt it would have. I'm hoping that it turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Only thing is that whatever he does will probably take him away from Ft. Campbell, which will end up being pretty nice to have him so close to home. We didn't really get a chance to enjoy that fact before he left for Afghanistan, he was in the 4th ID at Ft. Carson for nearly all of his first four years.