Change 5: Plan C

So we're delayed, only now not as long.

In some late night manuevering and complaining, a flurry of e-mails resulted in our invoking the "Reservists!" clause in re-deployment planning process, thereby creating a huge movement to get us out of here sooner than the 21st.

There actually is a Policy letter out there that says, basically, Reservists must be returned as soon as possible from a deployment, in most cases within 48 hours of the end of their scheduled duty. Measures include bumping Active Duty folks from their seats, all the way to having someone pay for commercial travel from the deployed location to home station.

There is actually good reason for this policy, though on the surface it seems a bit selfish. The biggest reason is that the government doesn't need to be paying double for the same services. Everyday we are here, and so are our replacements, Uncle Sam is paying bucks, to pay, house and feed us. For taxpayers, that means military money is going to waste. While it may appear to be a drop in the budget bucket, it all adds up. It's money that can't be spent on something else.

Another reason is that Reservists (and Guardsmen) are on a defined set of orders, and if they expire while you are still in the combat zone, suddenly you have a whole bunch of civilians to deal with that legally no one in the military has any control over. From the Reservists' standpoint, they are also without benefit coverage and not getting paid, so they are cut-off from TWO jobs.

Finally, most Reservists have arranged with their civilian jobs to be away for a specific time. When we start showing up late over and over again, it damages the fragile support that employers give to the military, allowing their employees to continue to be part of the Guard and Reserve, serving their country. Destroy that and volunteerism would wither up and die, and the Guard and Reserve would cease to exist.

So, we were giving permission to find alternate and earlier means of transportation to leave the theater. Our Unit Deployment Monitor scoured all the flights in and out of here for the next couple of days and found a rotator leaving in two days with 100 seats on it. After a series of phone calls and frantic e-mails (this is on a Saturday when no one is at work) we eventually got permission to use that flight, and the change was made.

So now we are leaving here on the 19th, and flying to Omaha, Nebraska. It's not home, but it's out of the desert. I was able to secure a promise of our home unit to send two planes out to meet us when we land and haul us all back home to Pittsburgh. It will add a couple of more hours to our journey, but come Tuesday night, most of us will be back home with our family and friends!

Can't wait! Hopefully this will be the last change, because I'm about changed out, at this point. Unfortunately, I gambled and put in a load of laundry that will not return in time... but that is a small price to pay for getting out of here. Stick a fork in me, I'm done!