Smart Mommy Solutions» military

deployment is official

Tonya — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:28:00 +0000

It is official. My husband received his orders this week. He is going to Afghanistan for a little over a year. At least there is no question now, and we can work on the game plan.

Deployment is mostly official

Tonya — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:01:00 +0000

Regarding my husbands deployment, I guess that Afghanistan won. He hasn’t received orders yet, but he is definitely scheduled to go to Afghanistan. I am bummed on many levels, both deep and shallow. We will miss him of course, and a year plus is a very long time. He is supposed to head to an army base in Kansas at the end of May for training. He is in the Navy reserves as a supply officer, and is being pulled to fill in and help out the Army. That part in itself doesn’t make him happy because he would rather be going over in a job that he has done before with a group that he knows. Then he will get sent to Afghanistan in August. One shallow thing that bugs me is that he is supposed to report in May on Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and we have a traditional trip to Yosemite that weekend every year, and he will have to miss it. Why would they choose a holiday to report on? He may get a few days off around 4th of July, so I am thinking about taking the kids on a road trip to Kansas around the 4th. Not sure what there is to see in Kansas, but there is lots to see between California (where we live) and Kansas. With the Iraq deployment, he would have left from Williamsburg, Virginia, and I was really looking forward to taking a vacation in Williamsburg. Oh well. We will have fun on a road trip from California to Kansas. I will take the long way through the Grand Canyon. I guess on a shallow positive note, I will get my digital SLR when he leaves as he will probably take our smaller digital camera with him.

another possible deployment

Tonya — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:08:00 +0000

Ok, so my husband just got notified that he is being deployed in May to Afghanistan for a year. The head honcho for the other unit that wants to deploy him to Iraq is mad and is fighting with the head honcho for the Afghanistan one. We just have to sit back I guess and wait to see who will win. We are voting for the Iraq one. Less dangerous, and shorter time frame. What a pain.

job situation

Tonya — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:07:00 +0000

Ok, this is going to be a convoluted scenario, but it might be interesting later to look back and remember how it all went down. My husband works as a bond trader for a large bank. This bank was failing a few months ago, and was bought by a bigger bank. Well, some people were kept on with the bigger bank, some people were let go quickly, and my husband and his small group (6 guys) were given until May with a large monetary incentive to stay until May. This is good and bad, as you still have a job, but you can’t start looking for a new job until close to your end time or you would lose out on the extra money if you don’t stay. During this upheaval, the Navy reserves has been trying to send him on deployment overseas, but that would make him lose the extra money too. The Navy has been trying to work around his job, but he is at the top of the list for getting deployed, and he can’t put it off forever. So, he has been talking to potential other employers, and thinking about using the Navy to fall back on as an in between job. He decided to switch to a unit that is supposed to begin deployment in June, a month after his current job ends. Seems perfect as he can take some vacation before heading to Iraq for 6 months. Now he just had a meeting with the new bank people, and they are offering a job to all 6 of the guys that husband works with (and husband), but it is in Chicago (we live in California). Too many decisions. I know, at least we have options. This is not a good time to move though what with housing etc. We will just have to wait and see.

possible deployment

Tonya — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:45:00 +0000

So it looks like the reason I created this blog may come true. My husband may get deployed this summer. We did know it would happen. Just not when. I will keep updating.

husband’s job

Tonya — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:15:00 +0000

Since I started this blog as a communication vector regarding my husband who may be deployed, I thought that I should include some information about him. Some people may wonder about his current job seeing as he works in the field of the stock market (he is a bond trader), and he works for one of the large banks that was having trouble and was bought out. He did work for Washington Mutual’s broker dealer. Now since the buy-out, he works for JP Morgan/ Chase. They will find out the beginning of December which employees are going to be kept on as permanent employees. Everyone thinks that there is a very good chance that B’s whole department will be kept. We will just wait and see. The people who are not going to be kept get a nice severance package though.

Regarding his Navy reserve job, there is always the chance of deployment at any time, so we just have to wait and see on that too.

pre-deployment

Tonya — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:43:00 +0000

So, My husband just found out a couple of days ago that he is going to be deployed for 9 months. He is in the Navy reserve, and has only been deployed one other time in 2003. I thought that blogging might be a good way to remember his deployment and to be able to keep him updated on our lives while he is gone. We will see if I actually keep it up. It is the end of March right now, and he will not be leaving until June, but I thought that I would get a head start on it. Our daughter is 10 years old, and our son is 6. He will miss my birthday, daughter’s birthday, his birthday (although I’m sure that he will still get a year older), Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Bummer. There is still a very slight chance that he will be able to get out of it though. We’ll keep our fingers crossed. He should take the camera with him, and the laptop, which means that I may have to go shopping for a new camera. That is currently the only benefit that I can see is a camera upgrade. (I’ve been looking at the Canon xt or xti).