Free at Last!

I am officially done with the Army. Well, not officially, let me rephrase that. I am unofficially done with the Army. The only thing I have left to do is sign out for leave on Monday. Of course, I am still in the inactive reserves for another five years, which means that it is possible that I could get called back. That is the scare tactic that the reserve recruiter uses. According to him, he is not a recruiter, he is a counselor. For some reason the word recruiter has a negative connotation and makes people think of liars, it probably has something to do with the constant lying done by recruiters. So recruiters aren’t used for people getting out of the Army, career counselors are, even though it says recruiter on the badge, they are still not recruiters. The counselor was actually trying to persuade me that I should join the reserves so that I wouldn’t have to go to Iraq. The problem with that suggestion is that joining the reserves actually increases your chances of going to Iraq, so that is a horrible reason to join the reserves. Also, going to Iraq is not the bad part of being in the Army. The bad part is the amazing amounts of busy work that is done in the Army, aka mopping cement, raking leaves, buffing floors, standing in places for long periods of time while not being allowed to do anything but not being allowed to leave either. I don’t know if all this goes on in the reserves, but I’m pretty sure if I got called back from the inactive reserves it wouldn’t be for the purpose of mopping cement. After I talked to the counselor, which is a requirement before leaving the Army and once I finished all the stuff that I had to do, I talked to the guy who confirms that I have done everything. Lo and behold, the recruiter, or counselor, didn’t mark off that I had visited him. So I had to go talk to him again, once again trying to scare me into joining the reserves. Very annoying.

This weekend I am staying with some friends I know from church. It’s two people that I know from institute from before I deployed who are now married to each other. They have “maid’s quarters” in this upper room of the apartment they live in. They don’t have a maid so they use it for storage. But there is a bed in there and stuff and a bathroom with no toilet or shower. But I am permitted to walk into their home at any time to use their bathroom or watch TV. I pick up a good internet signal here, so that’s nice. I’m probably going to take two days to drive home, maybe I’ll stop in New Mexico for the night. But I still might drive straight through. I keep going back and forth on this. I don't regret my decision to join the Army, I still believe that it was the right thing for me to do. But it is nice to get my freedom back.