A Date to the Dance

I'm not talking about March Madness. Well, maybe I am in the loosest way possible, but I'm certainly not talking about college basketball.

My name is now on the actual, real deal, ink-and-paper roster to go to the OCS Board, scheduled on March 21st.

Now, my more astute readers will have noticed that "March 21st" is not in the month of "February." This is because, it's in fucking March.

Last we left off, Sgt. Steve had told me that I was a "go" for the very next board, which was going to be held "definitely in February," regardless if I was the only candidate in the entire region or not. "They" knew how long I had been waiting.

So imagine my surprise when I found out, yesterday, that the Feb OCS Board was held on Monday. Monday, February 7th.

"They never told us anything, Jack," Sgt. Steve lamented to me over the phone as my jaw swung unhinged. "No phone calls, no emails, no faxes, no nuthin'" And he sounded genuinely pissed. "So I calls up there to complain and they tell me that the notice was up on the battalion's website's homepage. They've never done that before."

I swallowed all of this with effort and cleared my head. Sgt. Steve went on to tell me that I was in ("in" as in, my name was on the roster for the March board), and that he was going to get me into OCS if it was the last thing he did. I told him that this was largely unacceptable, that he knew from over two weeks ago that February was "the omega line" and that we might now have to start thinking of a Plan B (ie, enlisting) due to personal finances becoming deplete. We agreed that we'd be in touch within the next week or so.

I talked it over with Jill that night and she's (naturally) 100% supportive of me waiting it out til March. But if you look at the timeline, the Board is at the end of March. I've been told that the BN needs like, two-to-three weeks to make it's decision (oh, side note: I'm no longer the only candidate. There are two others now slated for this March Board, plus a "maybe" from the same office I'm recruiting out of. If this "maybe" actually gets to this board, after I've been waiting so long, I'm going to tear someone's fucking head off.), and then another eight weeks for the National Board to make it's decision. From there, it might be even a few more weeks before I get orders cut to show up at either Basic Training or WOT (The accelerated Warrior Orientation Training, what prior service guys get instead of the full basic course). So in sum, it might end up being a FULL YEAR since I started this (August) before I start drawing a pay check from the Army.

Can we hold the line that long?

I don't want to have to give up my dream, or at least postpone it when I'm so close, when I can literally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I don't want my wife to have had made the sacrifices she's made for me to give up so close as well. But there's reality here too.

I'm going to this board in March, one way or another. I just hope they get a fire lit under their asses and move faster than they have been recently.