Navy Processing...

Well I'm nearly through Navy Mobilization Processing. It never ceases to amaze me how easily the military crams 4 hours of work into a week. On Monday we spent an hour or so listening to the basic briefs on where fire exits are, points of contact, basic info. Then we filled out several forms, all with the same basic info, name, address, contact info, etc. The Navy has piles of computer programs, and none of them talk to each other, so you get to enter the same info, over and over again. Then we got fitted for desert cammies. They're the same size as the woodland cammies I was wearing to class, but I guess it was fun to stand in line to try on the desert ones to prove that they were the same size. The next morning we sat in line for 3 hours so they could review my medical record 3 times to verify that I had everything completed and fill out the same health survey I filled out a month ago. I did get the Small Pox vaccine, which I couldn't get when I was in close contact to Kathy and baby Dylan, so at least it didn't feel like an utter waste of time. It's a good thing I'm at the start of the alphabet, the poor X, Y Z folks at the end of the line had to wait until after lunch to even get in line. Wednesday we had an FFSC brief at 1300. "Deployment is hard on families. Make sure your finances are in order. Here's some numbers to call if you want help." Stretched out for an hour or so. Thursday I put on a gas mask and then breathed in a bag. Also included, an hour of standing in line - yeah! We had to sign up for time slots to spread it out over the day, but everyone just showed up at 9 and stood in line. Then today we did our travel claims, and this afternoon we get our uniforms. Tomorrow we get on a bus and go to FT Jackson for 3 weeks of guns, grass, dirt, barracks style housing and fun! When they first started this processing, all of it was combined into a two week sprint, where the fittings and stuff we mixed in with the training. Much more efficient, but some mistakes were made due to the compressed schedule. So in standard Navy zero-defect mentality, two weeks have been drawn out to 4. Oh well, it could be worse, I could be in the Army.

Having the boys call me Monday and ask if I was coming home that night was painful. This deployment will ensure that when I'm job hunting this fall I avoid anything with major travel commitments.