It was Friday in late July in
Georgia, and I picked Bob up from the Atlanta airport in a rental car, and from
there we headed to Columbus and got a hotel suite with two bedrooms. At this early
point in the week, everything seemed pretty normal, like an average business
trip. Bob and I, once we got into town, went to a roadhouse restaurant where we
got to eat peanuts and throw the shells on the floor, which was a first for me.
Later that day we made it onto the Ft. Benning base and figured out where we
needed to be the next morning. With nothing else to do, we left. That night, I
went to sleep with little idea of what was going to happen to me the rest of
the week.
We got up early and made it onto base
first thing Saturday morning, the Army way. We parked the car and made it into
the CONUS Replacement Center (CRC), which at this point consisted of a bunch of
buildings off to the right and a large, open-air concrete pad of covered by roof
to provide shade from the intense Georgia sun. There were hundreds of people,
both military in and contractors out of uniform, who were there with one goal
in mind: to go off to war. But before you could do that, you had to show that
your paperwork was squared away, and that’s why everyone was there. Bob and I
had our Letters of Authorization (LOAs), and that was all I cared about, that
was all they cared about. When I got up to the head of the line and had my LOA
signed off, I was oh-so-glad I had sweated those details earlier in the week
because there was no appeal, there was no arguing, and there was no wiggle
room: you either had the LOA or you didn’t, and it appeared that some people
didn’t.
Bob and I were there as
highly-educated analysts, but it appeared to me that many of the people there
were mechanics or service providers on their last legs that had spent quite a bit
of time and resources to get to CRC in hopes of going to Iraq, Afghanistan, or
elsewhere to make some much needed money. And some of them didn’t have their
paperwork together. They were arguing, and weedling, and making excuses, but it
didn’t matter. There was no way for me to figure out how many people were
leaving those desks for the long trip back home empty handed, but there were a
few.
There were also a few people on the other side
of the equation: guys whose paperwork was squared away and who were going over
but were leaving loved ones behind. They wanted work in the United States, in
CONUS, but couldn’t find any, or it didn’t pay enough. One guy I talked to was
leaving his family behind to maintain helicopters, which he said “Hurt his
heart.” After getting our paperwork confirmed, there was nothing left to do but
leave and come back tomorrow, which we did.
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