All right here I go.
I was born in souther California. No I’m not Mexican (but I do love their food). I’m as wight as the snow we got here yesterday. (yes it was Easter sunday here too.) I was the oldist son to a mother who was and still is an emotional terrorist, and a father who drinks like a fish and those ladies and gents were their good habits. We moved our way north through a series of bankruptcies forclosures till we made it north of Sacramento, California. On 12 DEC 1998 my father left us, for a younger single woman who had no kinds that looked shockingly like my mom. After that my younger brother (and only sibling) was in and out of juvy.
Summer of my junior year of high school I took the GED test and enlisted in the US Army. I finished basic and most of my job skill training (called AIT [Advanced Individual Training]) before my would be class mates started their Senior year. Later the Army decided to “down size” the “Topographic Corps of Engineers” (yes the army does have such an animal), and they decided for me I would be better suited as a supply sergeant. I didn’t know this then but yes there are jobs in the army you can qualify for if you are not smart enough (as determined by the ASVAB) to be an Infantryman, supply is that job.
So I followed orders and went to Fort Lee, VA. After that  they sent me to my new first duty station, Fort Drum, NY. I went to Afghanistan and got hurt by one of those lovely IED’s you hear so much about in the news. So they sent me to Uzbekistan to Italy, to Germany, to England where I got on a troop transport to take me to the Washington Navel Yard so I could go to Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC). Spent some time there before they sent me back to Fort Drum to clear post. I was going to be medically discharged. 18 months later it was final and I was discharged. In that time I met my wife we got married and bought a house in the area.
As instructed by the Army I sent my records to the VA hospital near here. My records were handled in the order they were received, so about 2 years later I had my first medical appointment after separation I didn’t have to pay for. Yes didn’t have to pay for. They told me my records were amended and instead of being 40% disabled and medically retired I was 0% disabled b/c it was determined that the nerve damage in my left leg, ankle, lower back and right tricep may have been there before I enlisted. How they came to that conclusion I’ll never know b/c they won’t tell me.
So if I agreed to pay the Army back the full amount of what they gave me under my medically retied status they agreed not to press criminal charges. (wasn’t that nice). Now My wife and I were on the verge of bankruptcy and along with that will always come marriage troubles. Some how we stuck together and made it through. We paid the Army back, paid all the medical bills for physical therapy and all that other fun stuff, and by an act of God stayed current with our mortgage.
I have been out of the service now for 4 years this SEP. Things are going a lot better oddly enough this SEP will be my 5 wedding anniversary and our first child will be born.
Looking back at what I wrote that sounds all gloom and doom and I should be a very bitter person but I’m not all you can do is roll with the punches or get pissed off about being punched, no point in being both if you can help it.
Now I work at a Nuke Plant nearby. I love this job and it pays awesome. In the end it all worked out. So thats me in a nut shell.
-LT04