All good things must come to an end

We’ve been in Hawaii on a three year assignment since mid-December of 2008. Alexander, Reed, and Brookes actually moved here in late November, right after Thanksgiving, but myself, Madeline, and Beau followed a week and a half later after things in the continental U.S. were wrapped up.  Hawaii is great, and I love the constant fresh air and warm temps. It’s great for the kids to be able to go outside and play practically every day of the year. There’s a lot of history at Pearl Harbor that I want our kids to learn about. I like my new reserve unit at the MCB. My parents moved down here to be able to spend more time with the kids and me. I love the house we have here. If it had one more bedroom somewhere it would be the perfect house for us.
But, as the title of this post says, all good things must (may) come to an end. I got a call from my CO’s assistant saying the Captain needed to meet with me in exactly 1 hour. If I wasn’t such an outstanding example of a Marine, this would have had me worried. But since I have a perfect military file, I wasn’t at all worried about why she wanted to see me. So I put on my uniform, dropped the boys off down the street with Big Daddy, took the girls to a store nearby to meet up with my mother, and stole Alexander’s Mustang to go onto MCB Hawaii and meet with the Captain. Since I’ve only been drilling with this reserve unit for about three months, I had no idea why I needed to go to a meeting, but I knew I’d soon find out. When I got there and found out the reason, I was surprised. It seems that with my job skills and security clearance, I’m “needed” (Marine Corps language for “we strong suggest”) in one of two slots back on the mainland. However, given that Alexander is currently deployed, and I’m the sole parents for our six kids, the suggestion wasn’t as strong as it could have been. Basically I have three choices. I can turn down the new position and stay with my current reserve unit in Hawaii, I can go to the Marine Corps detachment at Fort Lewis in Washington state , or the Marine Corps detachment at Fort Knox in Kentucky. In both positions I would go as an active duty Marine working in the reserve unit, but in reality I would only be working 2-3 days a week because it is just a reserve unit. The advantage of the last two are that I would be almost guaranteed a promotion to Gunnery Sergeant within two years because of the job I do (which I can’t give any details about, so don’t ask), and I think being a Gunny would be a great thing. The disadvantage is that it’s considered a 1 year TAD, and so I wouldn’t be able to get much, if any, time off when Alexander goes on leave again next year a few months before redeploying home. The job is about 85%/15% office work/being in the field with the units, which would leave me a decent amount of time to spend with the kids.
If I decide to take one of the positions, I’ll probably choose Fort Knox because it’s closer to family, is in a better area, and has much better weather than the Seattle area does.  I still need to think it over and discuss it with my parents, Alexander, and the kids before making a final decision. I have two weeks to give the Captain an answer, and then another three weeks to get everything wrapped up here if I choose to go. I’ll post my decision here, on Facebook, and on Twitter when I come to a conclusion.

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