Ok, the purpose of this blog is to keep friends, family, and anyone who's interested updated on the various "goings-ons" of my life in the U.S. Army. For some pretty obvious reasons, places and names will be a little vague sometimes to protect the innocent and to stay in-line with the Army's guidance. I'll start out with a little History: I joined the Army in August of 2006 and shipped to Officer Candidate School in October of the same year. I was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant on January 25th, 2007. After OCS I attended the Basic Officers Leaders Course II (BOLCII) at Fort Benning and then went on to BOLC III (also known as OBC) at Fort Huachuca. I was assigned to a unit in Germany. Before the Army, I spent 6 years on active duty in the U.S. Navy, then 2 years in the Navy Reserves. I graduated from the State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY Oswego) in May of 2006 with a B.S. ( how appropriate :) ) in Business Administration, with a minor in Economics. I just got married on 1 September 2007 to the girl of my dreams and we're currently on our way over seas to our assignment in Germany. I'll try and start at the beginning...but this blog will pretty much be all over the place....so sit back, relax, and have a few laughs at my expense.
I'll start out by saying that so far, I've loved being in the Army. It's a pretty rewarding job and the pay and benefits aren't all that bad, that is, when you actually get paid. For the entire duration of my stay at Fort Huachuca....from the end of April untill the end of August, I was living in a hotel room, on TDY for my last School. Basically the concept here is that I wasnt going to be there long enough to be permanantly assigned there so they were going to pay me Per-diem.....roughly $100 per day to cover my food and lodging. At the end of every month you're supposed to file a travel voucher with the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, who in turn...reimburses you for your expenses...so the math here is that I was supposed to be getting about $3000 a month in addition to my Base pay...not bad right? Well, I have yet to see about $7500 of that money...and thats my lowest possible estimate. I filed my travel vouchers like a good little soldier..but the money never came...so I would call...determine it had been lost and refile...call...refile...call refile.....you get the idea. Hold on.....it gets really awesome. In order to file your travel voucher.....you have to send proof that your hotel bill has been paid in full in order to be reimbursed for the expense...which is, well, impossible if they keep losing your paperwork....so long story short...I have a $3000 hotel bill I cant pay when it comes time to leave and about 3 months in travel vouchers I'm owed, 1 of which I cant file until I pay the hotel off....sound like an interesting predicament? I assure you...it is. Long story short....I am sort of screwed. This of course is in addition to all the costs associated with a move over seas, housing and of course, the Wedding. This brings us to the Bachelor Party from hell....
"thats not a problem".......
3 out of the 5 groomsman I had decided to throw me a little bachelor party 2 nights before my wedding. Let me just start by saying that it was definitely a night to remember. My little brother from my Fraternity decides to hire 2 strippers and host it at the Fraternity house. My wife to be is less than pleased at the idea of naked women running around and rubbing all over me....but bless her little heart.....says boys will be boys, and turn a blind eye. Meanwhile...my little bro...I'll call him meat-head for now never bothers to let the fraternity know that 2 strippers will be showing up, so the fraternity decides to host a mixer with a sorority...not exactly an ideal venue. So the rest of us show up for the festivities and begin the party the way every bachelor party should...with a couple beers and a BS session. It was a blast. Kicking back and drinking with my boys...seeing a couple Bro's I haven't seen in a long time....having fun..then the entertainment arrives. 2 ladies and a big fat security guard show up...in the middle of this party..make their way to us and get ready to start the show. We get permission from one of the bro's to use his room for the show and get ready to be entertained. Thats when a slight problem becomes evident......Meat-Head doesn't have the money to pay them. Uh-oh. Now bear in mind that Meat-Head has known all along that he has no way to pay the ladies. They became understandably agitated...and begin threatening him.....and pretty much the rest of the wedding party as well. In their defense...they did drive an hour expecting to paid $1000 for a 2 hour show.....$250 per girl per hour....as Meat-Head requested. Now we have 2 angry strippers and a pissed off security guard running around a college party in see through bra's and panties, terrorizing a bunch of college kids. Perfect. Meat-Head, meanwhile, keeps repeating his Mantra of "thats not a problem" every time they demand their money.....well....it was a problem...really big problem, a problem that ended up costing me (WTF?) $450 which I have to then explain to my wife. Awesome. So my own bachelor party ended up costing me $450. I'd like to add at this point that the Dancers weren't the best looking girls I've ever seen...I'd describe them as "used". My bride was most unhappy. But wait, theres more.....
Meat-Head continues the poor decision making and decides that he cant afford to rent his Tux because he owes me money....so he decides not to pick it up or come to the rehearsal or rehearsal dinner....Instead he sends me a text saying he's stuck in traffic and cant make it. The next day, the day of the wedding, I'm frantically calling him to make sure he's coming.....when I get yet another text from him telling me his girlfriend is sick and in the hospital with E Coli apparently contracted from eating spinach and he can't leave her. I ask him where his tux is (by this time we have alerted a stand in) and he lets me know it is still at the rental place.....great. At this point I explain to him that everything he has botched up to this point we'll be able to laugh about in a few months, but that if he doesn't get his tux and show up on time....no one will be laughing...least of all him. He shows up...with his tux....and everything goes rather smoothly.
One of my other groomsman, who is flying in from AZ, suffers flight delay and is a few minutes late, but other than that....things went pretty well. which brings us to the next disaster.
Apparently the transportation office that was supposed to arrange my move over seas botched the paperwork, and the movers who were supposed to show up today wont be coming..so another month of rent in a house we wont be living in.....Amazing! I'll update you all when I find out whats going on there...until then....cross your fingers. OUT!!!!
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