A Tale To Tell: Follow-up
Here is the 4th and for currently last part of our ghost written series. I’m sure more updates will come in time.
August was rapidly approaching and the ship was going to be sailing for all of August and a little bit of September. Not wanting to miss my first day of classes and anxiously awaiting the word that I was to be released, I submitted a memo to not go on the August sailing. A week before we sail I was called into the office. They told me that I will be sailing and that the paperwork that I had re-signed months ago hadn’t even left the ship yet. It was sent a couple weeks after that disappointing meeting. I had to cancel all my classes, lost $150, and I had to go on one of the worst sailings ever. It’s now approaching the middle of November and I’ve still heard no word other than “It’s up in Ottawa right now.” My boss doesn’t even know if I’ll get the answer I’m looking for. What happens if I have to stay in? Well kids, I might have to go back to the gulf, but not completing the physical fitness test may be a card I can pull to get out of it. We shall see.
Since my decision to get out, life in the military has gotten somewhat better. I act differently. I act with the freedom of a guy who wants to get fired but is too good to have them actually let me go. It’s quite liberating when you never have to censor yourself. It’s like that episode of Seinfeld where George tries to get fired from the Yankee’s but just can’t do it no matter what he tries. I’ve been trying. Everything I see that I don’t like, I say “well that’s just another reason to get out of the Navy.” I’ve said it so much that it’s kind of a joke amongst my friends and co-workers here; so much so that now I have a book to write them all down in. It’s filled up faster than the ‘funny things heard at work’ book. That fact alone is a good reason to get out of the Navy. The best part is that I have to go to Halifax (along with most of my department) to do this intense warfare qualification thing for the ship in December for a week. Guess what they did? They’ve scheduled another fitness exam…in Halifax!
