Return of the Mack

Top pic, me at Ft. Jackson. Bottom pic, me and the guys at Fort Pulaski.

“What do you want to do in the Army?”, my recruiter asked me.

“Anything outside. I do not want to be in an office behind a desk.”

Recruiter puts in a VHS of heavy construction equipment and blowing up buildings.

I see fresh air and say, “Looks good to me. Where do I sign?”

Would you look at me and think I loved driving Small Emplacemet Excavators, 5000 gallon Fuel and Water trucks, sitting in the snow connecting rebar for the gas station we were building, blowing up old buildings? Probably not (you just judged me). I did love it. I loved being out with the guys (hardly any women in that field at the time) acting like an idiot but responsibly running thousands of dollars of construction equipment.

Life changed quickly (relatively) for me in the military. Married 1 year in, pregnant soon after. Which led to a choice I didn’t even fathom I would have to make so soon in my career. Stay in, while married to another soldier in my unit with the possibility of us both being deployed leaving a child behind. Or stay in until I’m 8 months pregnant and finish out my 8 year contract in the Army Reserves. It was a very tough choice to make. Logic dictated an obvious decision. We were in Germany, our Unit was on the verge of being deployed to Somalia. No choice. No one to leave a new baby with (not that I could imagine doing that). So I got out. Military dreams go 💨 poof…..

Did you know there are Army Reserve units overseas? I didn’t. But there are, and I joined the Reserves.

As the name implies, the Reserves are a Reserve force for active duty military. And Reserves are looked at, by active duty soldiers, as incompetent at their jobs. Mostly because they are. It is hard to become competent on military equipment and regulations when you only do it two days a month.

When my ex-husband and I left Germany, his next duty station was Ft. Sill, OK. (Which included 2 deployments. One to Cuba, One to Bosnia…..see why I had to get out?). So I had to find a Reserve unit close to there. Clinton, OK was the closest to me so once a month I would drive an hour and a half for a weekend to train. Also, when you’re a Reservist, you don’t get a choice as to what your job will be. So this unit was a Administrative unit. Yep, desk work. But wait, there’s more! It seems that the Army was lacking people that could handle mail in deployment situations. So say a Unit was deploying to Panama, SOMEONE has to be able to deal with their mail…..things you probably don’t think about huh?

So the Army decides to turn us into a Postal Unit. Hilariously they tried to turn Old Reserve soldiers (I’m serious, some of these guys were 50 year old FARMERS) into Postal clerks. It was an odd and amusing change to our unit that was broken into two phases. Phase 1 was done on Reserve weekends over a few months. Phase 2 was two weeks training at Ft. Jackson, SC to earn our F(fox)5 Identifier.

Now, this did not break my heart to have a 2 week vacation in South Carolina in the summer. I say vacation, even though I was working daily, because I was a mom of 3 fresh off my husbands 6 month deployment where I gave birth to our 3rd child while he was away. I KNOW deployments are tough on the service member. They are tough in a different way on their families at home. So, send me to the east coast for 2 weeks?? Um, yes please.

Well, maybe not send me, I did have to drive there…..but yes it was a vacation for me.

Everyday they would throw us on a bus (big step up from the cattle trucks of Basic Training and AIT) and bussed us from the barracks to the school house and back. And almost EVERY TIME this song was on the radio. https://youtu.be/uB1D9wWxd2w?si=awwUVKiEkIfoMY1e When I hear it now I am instantly transported to my time at Ft. Jackson. Where I had a little freedom, finally. Where I finally saw an ocean and a beach for the first time as we had a weekend off and spent it at Tybee Island. I remember getting up early Sunday morning because I wanted to see the sun rise at the ocean. The problem was that it was dependent on me running (yes running) from the hotel to the beach and we all know I’m not a fast runner so I missed it. But it was still beautiful! I remember going to my first Civil War fort, Ft. Pulaski and walking around Savannah, GA and being equally amazed at the beauty of the trees and with spanish moss and the humidity!

Long story short, the Army made me into what it wanted/needed. I can/could officially do anything a civilian Postal Worker could do….and that gives/gave me NO advantage to get into the USPS after exiting the military. I don’t know why, but that about sums up the government for me. Forever working

against itself.

So basically 4 years into the Army I’m sitting behind a desk taking a typing test proving that I could whoop your ass with a word processor as well as a Shape Charge.