Military Service (Reserves) and Trucking

No; it did not work very good for me. Deployments aren't the problem. Making drill often is. Making them up is also a problem sometimes.

 

I was both. When I went to retire. My LES showed 24 years. I had a one year break in service, 3 years in the IRR. 4 years active. They said I had a bad year from a long time ago. Supposedly was a few points short and can not transfer points from one year to another. Sad part was never had a bad year point wise or other. Said I would have to re-up again. OTR it is hard to get in for drill sometimes. Due to loads, weather etc. If you do not make the drill up in a time window it counts against you. I got fed up and got out. Had deployed twice. Had all kinds of awards. Had critical MOS's with a security clearance. Even had a congressional promotion to SGT in a combat zone.

I figured I did what was expected of me for long enough. They could have awarded me my retirement. Why re-up again when most of my service was combat units. Why deploy again? My unit has deployed 5 times since I went on the last one with them. I was too old to keep playing that game. If I re-uped again and could not get in for a drill how many more years would I have to be in to get a good year? I have had medical issues from the 1st desert storm they never took care of. I just had my share and decided I had enough.

 

I never had a problem meeting the standards. I always took pretty good care of myself. The only other issue is family. If you are OTR and come in and spend that time with your unit, then roll again makes home time even worse. Units deploy a lot more now than in the past. Not if, but when and how many times. When I went in my last unit. Myself and only a few other soldiers had combat patches. Now almost all of them do.

 

so they screwed you for your retirement? man that really pisses me off because you got all these lazy SOB's on SSI that dont belong on it, people on welfare and food stamps and all this other government crap just because their mom decided to push out a stupid moron, and here you served the country for 24 f-n years and if i read your post right, arent giving you retirement? really makes me mad, and i know that you aren't even close to the only guy they've done that too. thanks for your service

 

Thanks, My actual time was 20 years. The break in service and the IRR does not count. Yeah; I was a little aggravated to say the least when I found out I was short by about 3 months on points according to them. I had just came off a deployment that was really yanked up. The upper NCO chain of command was very weak to say the least. None of them had ever been on active duty. None had seen combat. We was not in a combat zone, but pulling security for units that was. I told them they had lost everything, but my life at that point and I was getting out before they lost that.

One of the guards who was a drunk and a slob of a soldier had threatened a NCO friend of mine for doing his duty. I relieved him of his weapon and pushed for him to get busted. The army I came from just making a threat was assault. Touching someone made it aggravated assault. Making threats to an NCO that he was going to be fragged or accidentally shot was more than I could handle. When I pushed for his being articled 15 I was told by the first shirt there was nothing we could do. The guy was relieved of duty until he seen a shrink. Nothing happened except he was confined to quarters and barred from drinking.

It was the sorriest unit I had ever seen on active. A bunch of weekend warriors that were high ranking and never been on active duty. I had a lot of issues within that command. I had orders given to me to carry out and when I was doing so I had a E-4 tell me no Sgt there has been a change in plans I was told to tell you by top that this is the orders now. I came un-glued. I went and looked for top and told him don't you ever send a lower ranking man to tell me what to do in front of my men. It made me and top look like total idiots. Anytime NCO's lose the chain of command it sends a message to the troops. The upper NCO chain was incompetent and made all of us NCO's look bad.

I had it out with top and he told me that he was given a change of mission and he had to get the word out to the NCO's. I told him you never ever do it that way. I told him you are lucky that this is not a combat zone (even tho we were all tankers doing security work.) I told him this unit is so messed up we would all be killed in combat. Poorest leadership I ever seen. First name basis with pretty much the whole unit. I lost all respect for wearing the uniform with that unit. I got out as soon as I we got back stateside.