So I had drills today. My unit was deployed around the time I found out that I was pregnant with Katie. So pretty much the last year of drills consisted of the old, the lame the lazy and of course us pregos. Normally our unit is only about 60 people. But even 60 seemed like a lot today. I guess I had gotten used to the 10 or so people that where left behind.
I was running late, because I had no idea that the road I take once a month to get to drills is under construction. I had to take a long crappy detour. So any way today was the first drill where every one who had been deployed had to turn up for drill. I was shocked when I pulled in to see a darn formation! I guess I got used to lazy gaggles.
When a guard unit is deployed and there are people who can not go and job positions that have no one in them, the state pulls random soldiers to fill those spots. This deployment was even odder, the state took several units and put them together to form a full battalion of soldiers with a diverse range of jobs. Then the battalion was trained to work as Military Police for the duration of the deployment.
Now this deployment was hard for me in a lot of ways. I didn't want to stay behind. There is this thing with most soldiers, your unit or platoon (depending on the size of the unit your in) is like a family. For me it was like watching my second family go off to war and me staying behind. Along with that feeling of abandoning your family there is the fact that even though deployment is hard work, dangerous and scary and all that bit. There is also a since of excitement and adventure in being deployed. Knowing that something can and will happen but not having a clue what.
For those soldiers that are telling their families that they are 100% against deployment and they would do anything to get out of it. Either they don't like the military and really would be better off out of it or they are telling their families what they think they want to hear. Don't take that the wrong way, its heart breaking to leave your loved ones behind for a year or more and you miss them and think of them daily and wish you where home with them but there is an undeniable excitement to it as well.
So needless to say it was hard on me to not go with my unit this time around. I had just gotten married and almost instantly became pregnant. There where a lot of changes going on in my life that where a struggle. (the struggles of new marriages and mixed families is another blog for another day). At the end of the day I believe for me and my family and the place we where in at the moment, it was best that I couldn't go.
Any way back to drills. There where a lot of people there that I have never met before. Some will choose to transfer into the unit and stay with us, some will return to the unit they where in before deployment and some will be finishing up their enlistments and leaving the guard all together. The whole thing felt so strange to me. Here where all these people who had deployed with my unit and I don't know any of them.
One of the guys recently became a US citizen and I think he was the one who got me all ruffled up on the real topic of today's blog. This new citizen wanted to talk politics. Now I know that in order to become a citizen the guy had to take a really hard exam and he of course had to know a lot of information about our government and all that. However the conversation eventually got to Welfare. This issue is one that makes my blood boil!
This guy believes that because the intent of the system is to support the very old and children then there is no putting down the system. Maybe that is true, however that is not how it really works. During our discussion my friend Misty ask him if he personally knows one person on Welfare. Of course he don't so he has no first hand knowledge of how things really happen.
I know people that do not work, have never worked and have no intention of working that live off the system. I also know some people who work their asses off and when they hit a bump in the road of life they can't get any help at all.
As I am extremely tired from a long day and a week from hell I think I will have to rant later.
No comments:
Post a Comment