Well, the past 12 hours has been a bit of an eye opener for me. We found out yesterday evening that our neighbor, Ernesto Padilla, is going to Iraq on an IA billet. Ernesto is a CEC officer just like Jason. Some of you may be saying, what the heck is an IA billet. I'm still learning all of this stuff, but basically the CEC naval community has to fill so many (I think about 100) IA billets at a time. So that means around 100 CEC officer are always in Iraq. Rumor has it (gossip runs wild here at NAS Lemoore) that Jason and Ernesto were both in the running for having to go, but Jason is too young. Ensigns cannot fill the IA billets. Unfortunately, Jason can't stay an Ensign forever. He'll be a Lieutenant Junior Grade in October and then he is most definitely up for grabs.
Right now, Jason's plan is to try and get into a battalion either in San Diego or Port Hueneme. The battalions deploy, but Jason tells me it's safer and the experience is much better. When you are in a battalion tour, you can't get chosen for an IA. The battalions go a lot of different places, like Africa, Afghanistan, but most are in the Middle East. The main reason Jason wants to go to the battalion is so that he can go to graduate school following his tour. (You have to be in a battalion before you can apply to go to grad. school.)
So, today has been a little nerve racking. I know there's no sense in worrying about it now, but so much unknown is hard to take. I guess I need to start educating myself on the war. Any suggestions??
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Do you remember John Altenes? He has deployed to Iraq three times (his wife deployed once). He has seen a lot of action. He patrols around Bagdad every day. That's pretty scary. Deploying would be a good experience for Jason. It would be daunting, but it would open up opportunities in the Military. I like the US intentions in Iraq, but our success there is far from assured.
It would seem that his experience would not necessarily lead to actual combat. It's all pretty scary isn't it?
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