In this blog, I'll refer to hubby as "DH". I've learned that for security reasons I should probably avoid specific details about names and such. DH is the term military significant others use for "Dear Husband".
I'll start off with a little of our history. After graduating from law school, the economy was so terrible and lawyers were being laid off left and right, along with the rest of the country. People who kept their jobs weren't leaving them, so after applying to a billion places, one of the only places to offer DH a lucrative job opportunity was the government. DH accepted a job as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) with Social Security. On the east coast, this is a pretty prestigious opportunity, but apparently people in the midwest haven't gotten the memo, but that's aside from the point.
Regardless, it paid well, had decent hours, and gave him the opportunity to really see how our government works. After his two years, where he worked as a claims representative (the person you see when you go into a SS office), as an attorney in the Office of General Counsel (OGC), as an operations supervisor in Champaign, IL (where he supervised claims representatives; he joined me down in Champaign for a while while I was going to graduate school), as a disability policy specialist (he worked in a regional office where he analyzed data and policy and provided support to field offices), and as a group supervisor in a hearings office (managed the caseload for decision writings in the hearings office), he was guaranteed a job offer at one of the spots he did a rotation at. We thought he was definitely a shoe-in at OGC because he did really well there, made a lot of friends within the office and had a law degree. He had a great, well-rounded view of the system at that point and thought that his experiences would make him an asset to the office.
Within weeks of our wedding (October 10, 2010), they ultimately decided to send him to Hammond, Indiana to be a supervisor in an office. No law job. No law experience. Nothing even remotely related to his law degree. But, we had no other job offers for him so he had to take it. It was a still great pay and great benefits, so this was going to be a stepping stone to other things in the future. This also meant we had to move from Chicago to Indiana in like, 42 seconds because we had this thing called a wedding coming up.
Equally as awesome, then they told us that he actually wasn't experienced enough to take the job there, so we were going to have to move to a different place. They decided that sending him to the northern suburbs of Illinois for six months and then down to the southern suburbs of Chicago permanently was a better idea. How are we supposed to find a place to live, you may ask? We settled where we are now because it was midway between the two places. DH continued to look for jobs but was content with where he was. He enjoyed working with all of the employees and did find the job rewarding when he helped people that actually needed it.
DH applied for the Air Force in November of 2010 to be a Judge Advocate General (JAG), which is basically a lawyer for the Air Force. We found out in January of 2011 that he was not chosen, but was told he can reapply for consideration, which he did. We waited and waited and then found out that they decided not to choose anyone for that board. He considered the Navy and applied for JAG in February or March of 2011. For both Air Force and Navy, had had to fill out an initial application and go in for an interview. The two interviews were vary different but he had a special feeling about the Navy one and told me that he thought he nailed it. I had good feelings about it too.
On April 20th of 2011, we got notice that he had been chosen as an alternate. We were super excited but tried our very hardest not to get out of control with it because there was still a possibility that he wouldn't get in. We dodged questions left and right from friends and family because we couldn't give them any answers. We knew absolutely nothing about the process other than what was told to us in very brief emails or phone calls.
He got in touch with his recruiter in early May. He had kept in contact with his recruiter and was very diligent about completing everything on time, if not early. We wanted to make sure he had the best chance of making it past the alternate stage. I contacted some people on Facebook that I saw had similar situations and they helped with information as best as they could, but each situation is very different. I also spent hours on the Navy's facebook page, on message boards and found any little information I could.
DH was coming in as a Direct Appointment which is more competitive than the other option, students coming out of law school, because they only let in like, 5-6 people a year. He had to start preparing all the paperwork for the medical review to make sure he didn't have any underlying diseases and whatnot. DH had a knee injury in high school, so DH spent the next two months trying to get in touch with his doctors from back home to say that there were no longer any records regarding his knee surgery. It took forever, but he finally got them and it didn't seem to pose a problem for the Navy because it didn't impact his performance at all.
There were more forms for him to fill out in July and he took the physical around then also. He had to be there at five in the morning and was there with people who were enlisting. He was the only officer that was there that day. He had to fill out a bunch of forms and then had to do drug and alcohol testing. He then saw an actual doctor and performed a typical physical exam. He had to take a hearing and vision test and do some blood work. Then he had to basically get naked and they measured his height, weight and sent him into anther room where he waited for a mass (20 guys) flexibility and strength test. The whole process took him about 7 hours.
In about 2 weeks, his recruiter got a letter saying he had physically qualified. They send everything down at that point to say that he'd physically qualified. It's mid-August at this point. He filled out some additional paperwork. Then we waited. and waited. and waited.
The next thing we heard was in early September. A person from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) contacted him about an in-person interview about his security clearances. They scheduled it very quickly and he completed it that week. I had been in occasional contact with a woman whose husband was a student alternate and she told us that shortly after her husband completed the OPM interview that he had been offered a commission. This kept us hopeful, but once again, we didn't want to freak out with excitement quite yet.
Then came October 3rd. DH had received a couple of phone calls from his recruiter but he was at work so he couldn't answer right away. He called back, and it was then that he found out he had been offered a commission. He obviously accepted, and was sworn in on October 5th.
That brings us to the point we're at now. This last Friday, October 14th, we received notice of 12 different places that are available for first tour JAGs. We had to rank our top six. We stayed up until almost 1 am last night picking the places. We were on travel websites, base housing websites, privatized military housing websites, rent.com, homes.com, etc, etc, etc and so on and so forth. We looked up reviews of all the bases, looked at the cities websites, etc, etc, etc, and so on and so forth.
I've always wanted to go to Japan, one of the options, but I nixed that one after finding out that they keep your dog in quarantine for like 6 months upon arrival in Japan because they are a rabies free country and I guess that's the incubation period for rabies. The other choices were San Diego, CA, Bremerton, WA, Norfolk, VA, Pearl Harbor, HI, Groton, CT, Mayport, FL, Jacksonville, FL, Pensacola, FL, Naples, Italy, Washington DC, and Great Lakes, IL. We also eliminated Great Lakes, IL because part of the reason we wanted to be in JAG was the opportunity to experience something different.
After hammering it out, we chose Naples, Pearl Harbor, San Diego, Mayport, Groton and Norfolk as our top six choices. DH's going to submit his paperwork tomorrow, October 17th, and then it's a waiting game for him to receive his orders. We've run through a million scenarios on our head about why they would either send us or not send us to any of those places. But, in the end, it's where the Navy needs him most that matters.
DH will have to go to ODS (Officer Development School) for five weeks starting November 13th. It's basically like a boot camp. Then he has a break for about a month where we'll be moved to wherever our first tour is and DH will start his work there. Then he'll return to Newport , RI for Naval Justice School (NJS) I can go with him to that one, but I can't go with him to ODS. I'll stay here and continue working, with my last day being December 8.
The problem I'm currently dealing with is where we're going to be when he's at NJS. I won't be able to work if I go with him for that whole time because it'll be hard to find a job I'll have to leave in 2-3 months. I'm okay with not working. The problem is that DH may have to stay in Officer's Quarters or some other Navy mandated place. I can stay there too, but they don't allow dogs. I'm going to have a panic attack if I have to leave Charlie somewhere else while I'm in Newport. I know wherever he is, he'll be loved and cared for, but I don't know how comfortable I am being a new city completely by myself all day, in a hotel with no dog and nothing of my own. I really want to be able to stay in a an extended stay hotel that allow dogs. There are plenty of places but they're all expensive. The Navy gives us an allowance for housing (BAH) but since we basically move into our first tour location in December, that money will presumably go towards our place there. I don't imagine that they give you two BAH, one for your tour location and one while you're in Newport. DH obviously doesn't have to pay for wherever they put him during NJS, but if he chooses not to stay there (if that's even possible) I don't know if they'll give him an allowance to stay somewhere else. I found a couple of vacation/temporary rental houses for about 1000-1300 a month that I wouldn't mind staying in (and we're not paying for housing, ourselves, anywhere at that point because we get the allowance) so it'd almost be like we're still paying rent here in IL, it's just for a house in Newport. Plus, that's less than we're paying here anyway, but we'll see how that works out. We still have to wait for his orders so we can get some more clarity from the situation.
Until we get more information, we're kind of void of information. This has been the worst part about the whole process. I'm hoping that writing this blog will help us digest all the information and can serve as a tool to our friends and family who are curious about the process too. I also hope that maybe it can help people that find themselves in similar situations in the future. We weren't able to find much information and it made us kind of nervous not knowing what was coming next. If we can help just one person ease their fears, I think that'd be really awesome.
I think that's about it for now. We'll see what happens next.
I'll start off with a little of our history. After graduating from law school, the economy was so terrible and lawyers were being laid off left and right, along with the rest of the country. People who kept their jobs weren't leaving them, so after applying to a billion places, one of the only places to offer DH a lucrative job opportunity was the government. DH accepted a job as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) with Social Security. On the east coast, this is a pretty prestigious opportunity, but apparently people in the midwest haven't gotten the memo, but that's aside from the point.
Regardless, it paid well, had decent hours, and gave him the opportunity to really see how our government works. After his two years, where he worked as a claims representative (the person you see when you go into a SS office), as an attorney in the Office of General Counsel (OGC), as an operations supervisor in Champaign, IL (where he supervised claims representatives; he joined me down in Champaign for a while while I was going to graduate school), as a disability policy specialist (he worked in a regional office where he analyzed data and policy and provided support to field offices), and as a group supervisor in a hearings office (managed the caseload for decision writings in the hearings office), he was guaranteed a job offer at one of the spots he did a rotation at. We thought he was definitely a shoe-in at OGC because he did really well there, made a lot of friends within the office and had a law degree. He had a great, well-rounded view of the system at that point and thought that his experiences would make him an asset to the office.
Within weeks of our wedding (October 10, 2010), they ultimately decided to send him to Hammond, Indiana to be a supervisor in an office. No law job. No law experience. Nothing even remotely related to his law degree. But, we had no other job offers for him so he had to take it. It was a still great pay and great benefits, so this was going to be a stepping stone to other things in the future. This also meant we had to move from Chicago to Indiana in like, 42 seconds because we had this thing called a wedding coming up.
Equally as awesome, then they told us that he actually wasn't experienced enough to take the job there, so we were going to have to move to a different place. They decided that sending him to the northern suburbs of Illinois for six months and then down to the southern suburbs of Chicago permanently was a better idea. How are we supposed to find a place to live, you may ask? We settled where we are now because it was midway between the two places. DH continued to look for jobs but was content with where he was. He enjoyed working with all of the employees and did find the job rewarding when he helped people that actually needed it.
DH applied for the Air Force in November of 2010 to be a Judge Advocate General (JAG), which is basically a lawyer for the Air Force. We found out in January of 2011 that he was not chosen, but was told he can reapply for consideration, which he did. We waited and waited and then found out that they decided not to choose anyone for that board. He considered the Navy and applied for JAG in February or March of 2011. For both Air Force and Navy, had had to fill out an initial application and go in for an interview. The two interviews were vary different but he had a special feeling about the Navy one and told me that he thought he nailed it. I had good feelings about it too.
On April 20th of 2011, we got notice that he had been chosen as an alternate. We were super excited but tried our very hardest not to get out of control with it because there was still a possibility that he wouldn't get in. We dodged questions left and right from friends and family because we couldn't give them any answers. We knew absolutely nothing about the process other than what was told to us in very brief emails or phone calls.
He got in touch with his recruiter in early May. He had kept in contact with his recruiter and was very diligent about completing everything on time, if not early. We wanted to make sure he had the best chance of making it past the alternate stage. I contacted some people on Facebook that I saw had similar situations and they helped with information as best as they could, but each situation is very different. I also spent hours on the Navy's facebook page, on message boards and found any little information I could.
DH was coming in as a Direct Appointment which is more competitive than the other option, students coming out of law school, because they only let in like, 5-6 people a year. He had to start preparing all the paperwork for the medical review to make sure he didn't have any underlying diseases and whatnot. DH had a knee injury in high school, so DH spent the next two months trying to get in touch with his doctors from back home to say that there were no longer any records regarding his knee surgery. It took forever, but he finally got them and it didn't seem to pose a problem for the Navy because it didn't impact his performance at all.
There were more forms for him to fill out in July and he took the physical around then also. He had to be there at five in the morning and was there with people who were enlisting. He was the only officer that was there that day. He had to fill out a bunch of forms and then had to do drug and alcohol testing. He then saw an actual doctor and performed a typical physical exam. He had to take a hearing and vision test and do some blood work. Then he had to basically get naked and they measured his height, weight and sent him into anther room where he waited for a mass (20 guys) flexibility and strength test. The whole process took him about 7 hours.
In about 2 weeks, his recruiter got a letter saying he had physically qualified. They send everything down at that point to say that he'd physically qualified. It's mid-August at this point. He filled out some additional paperwork. Then we waited. and waited. and waited.
The next thing we heard was in early September. A person from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) contacted him about an in-person interview about his security clearances. They scheduled it very quickly and he completed it that week. I had been in occasional contact with a woman whose husband was a student alternate and she told us that shortly after her husband completed the OPM interview that he had been offered a commission. This kept us hopeful, but once again, we didn't want to freak out with excitement quite yet.
Then came October 3rd. DH had received a couple of phone calls from his recruiter but he was at work so he couldn't answer right away. He called back, and it was then that he found out he had been offered a commission. He obviously accepted, and was sworn in on October 5th.
That brings us to the point we're at now. This last Friday, October 14th, we received notice of 12 different places that are available for first tour JAGs. We had to rank our top six. We stayed up until almost 1 am last night picking the places. We were on travel websites, base housing websites, privatized military housing websites, rent.com, homes.com, etc, etc, etc and so on and so forth. We looked up reviews of all the bases, looked at the cities websites, etc, etc, etc, and so on and so forth.
I've always wanted to go to Japan, one of the options, but I nixed that one after finding out that they keep your dog in quarantine for like 6 months upon arrival in Japan because they are a rabies free country and I guess that's the incubation period for rabies. The other choices were San Diego, CA, Bremerton, WA, Norfolk, VA, Pearl Harbor, HI, Groton, CT, Mayport, FL, Jacksonville, FL, Pensacola, FL, Naples, Italy, Washington DC, and Great Lakes, IL. We also eliminated Great Lakes, IL because part of the reason we wanted to be in JAG was the opportunity to experience something different.
After hammering it out, we chose Naples, Pearl Harbor, San Diego, Mayport, Groton and Norfolk as our top six choices. DH's going to submit his paperwork tomorrow, October 17th, and then it's a waiting game for him to receive his orders. We've run through a million scenarios on our head about why they would either send us or not send us to any of those places. But, in the end, it's where the Navy needs him most that matters.
DH will have to go to ODS (Officer Development School) for five weeks starting November 13th. It's basically like a boot camp. Then he has a break for about a month where we'll be moved to wherever our first tour is and DH will start his work there. Then he'll return to Newport , RI for Naval Justice School (NJS) I can go with him to that one, but I can't go with him to ODS. I'll stay here and continue working, with my last day being December 8.
The problem I'm currently dealing with is where we're going to be when he's at NJS. I won't be able to work if I go with him for that whole time because it'll be hard to find a job I'll have to leave in 2-3 months. I'm okay with not working. The problem is that DH may have to stay in Officer's Quarters or some other Navy mandated place. I can stay there too, but they don't allow dogs. I'm going to have a panic attack if I have to leave Charlie somewhere else while I'm in Newport. I know wherever he is, he'll be loved and cared for, but I don't know how comfortable I am being a new city completely by myself all day, in a hotel with no dog and nothing of my own. I really want to be able to stay in a an extended stay hotel that allow dogs. There are plenty of places but they're all expensive. The Navy gives us an allowance for housing (BAH) but since we basically move into our first tour location in December, that money will presumably go towards our place there. I don't imagine that they give you two BAH, one for your tour location and one while you're in Newport. DH obviously doesn't have to pay for wherever they put him during NJS, but if he chooses not to stay there (if that's even possible) I don't know if they'll give him an allowance to stay somewhere else. I found a couple of vacation/temporary rental houses for about 1000-1300 a month that I wouldn't mind staying in (and we're not paying for housing, ourselves, anywhere at that point because we get the allowance) so it'd almost be like we're still paying rent here in IL, it's just for a house in Newport. Plus, that's less than we're paying here anyway, but we'll see how that works out. We still have to wait for his orders so we can get some more clarity from the situation.
Until we get more information, we're kind of void of information. This has been the worst part about the whole process. I'm hoping that writing this blog will help us digest all the information and can serve as a tool to our friends and family who are curious about the process too. I also hope that maybe it can help people that find themselves in similar situations in the future. We weren't able to find much information and it made us kind of nervous not knowing what was coming next. If we can help just one person ease their fears, I think that'd be really awesome.
I think that's about it for now. We'll see what happens next.
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