Apparently, the lesson of this weekend is lie your ass off…
Two times this weekend I found out that being honest doesn’t pay. First one, and relatively insignificant, was that I was asked if I had a drivers license on me. I said yes, and ended up ferrying vehicles.
The most important one however, came from me starting a process well over a year ago. I had been on temporary profile in the army for a couple of years. What this means is that I have a limitation against doing certain physical things, specifically situps in my case. That’s the profile, and it was temporary because it expired every 90 days. I wanted to get a permenant one so that I could first stop putting myself in pain, and second so I could go to Army schools to further my career. No biggy, I see a hundred people in my unit that have done the same thing with much less injuries or will to succeed. I figure, if they can do it, well, so can I, it can’t be that hard. This was Feb-Mar of 2007 timeframe.
Since starting the process, I’ve been put on the fence for the past 7 months as to whether or not I’m getting deployed. It changed about a half dozen times, but ultimately I figured that I would go, since well, why not. I found out this weekend however that I’m most definitely not, when I expected just the opposite answer, and now I also find out that my career is in real jeopardy because of this.
The irony in this is I’m less hurt now than I was before all this started because I’ve learned a few ways to mitigate the pain; another irony is that for years while on active duty I had the same issues, and much worse, and I was called everything from a complainer to a malingerer, because I was going in to figure out what was wrong with my back – always got the same answer, “Everyone’s back hurts, and you’re just trying to get out of duty.” If I ever tried to get out of duty, I was never once successful, but nevermind :)
The moral to the story is that if you don’t want to get stuck on a silly detail because someone failed to plan, lie. If you want to stay in the army and know your hurt, lie. If you like silly details and want to get out of whatever you’re doing, apparently being completely honest will get you exactly what you want. That’s the real irony.
