For background, my son Justin is in the Navy, has just gone over the 20 year mark. He has suffered from migraines most of his life. We first identified it when he was 6 or 7 years old. He has never had treatment for the migraines, just does Excedrin or Mydol when they come on and holds on until they pass.
He has been stationed in San Diego since April, supposed ot be a 2 or 3 year tour, I don't remember which.
Last month he was selected to do an IA (Individual Augmentation) tour out of Bahraain for 9 months or so. He was not real excited about it but like any sailor was going to do what they told him to do.
The tour required him to go to Norfolk for a month or so for some additional training before heading overseas.
In mid October I flew out to San Diego and drove his car back here to Kansas City for him. At the same time he flew to Norfolk where he first did 2 weeks quarantine in the Navy Hotel on base.
He finished his 2 week quarantine and a couple of days later was doing the medical before he shipped out. The doctor examining him was asking him some stuff and Justin mentioned the migraines. The doctor decided that Justin could not do the tour of duty he was scheduled for because of the migraines. Justin was told to wait for new orders that would send him back to San Diego. The doctor also informed him of some migraine treatments that are now available but that he would not have time to start on before the IA tour.
So my first gripe is about how do you have someone, on duty, for 20 years, that has suffered migraines many times while on active duty, has listed them on the medical paperwork when signing up and not have it noted somewhere that he has migraines. How come this was not known prior to cutting orders, rushing through preparations and sitting therough 2 weeks of quarantine?
Anyway, he was awaiting orders to get back to San Diego for 2 weeks. he called whoever he was supposed to and they would tell him, nothing yet, check back tomorrow. So, then go back to the hotel and hang out for the rest of the day. No car so he couldn't do much other than what is available on base and a lot of that is shut down because of the COVID stuff.
Yesterday, he was talking to somebody and they informed him, oh, no we aren't doing new orders, we are just canceling the orders you had and sending you back, we should have flight arrangements for you today. Now, he wanted to fly from Norfolk to here in Kansas City and then drive his car back to San Diego. He contacted his home base in San Diego and got a weeks worth of leave approved over the phone with email confirmation and then waited to hear about the flight arrangments. Apparently, because of procedures, he could not make his requests about flying back to KC instead of San Diego until they had the flight arranged. I do not quite understand it all but it had to do with SATO (whatever that is) or some such.
Justin and I spoke about it yesterday and he said that what would probably be happening is that they would be flying him to San Diego and then he would grab a flight back here to KC immediately so he did not have to go into quarantine in San Diego. He said he would not get reimbursed for the KC trip. We both thought that was pretty stupid so we grabbed him a flight today from Norfolk to KC and he is due to land in about 3 hours. He will spend a day or so here and then drive back to San Diego. The trip will be on his dime but since he would have had to fly from San Diego to KC on his dime it kind of all comes out in the wash, ya know?
So, he has basically wasted the past month doing nothing and will have to do another 2 weeks of quarantine when he gets back to San Diego.
I might be making up rainbows from my memories but I really don't remember the system being that stupid. It was always hurry up and wait but most of iut usually made sense to me.
End of rant. Hope everybody is well and making it through this crazy crap.
This tale got me right in the feels, Russ...and this is why the best advice I ever got was to commit vast sections of the TRANSMAN to memory before I was an E-4...works a lot better when you can speak the lingo directly to the PN/YN doing your paperwork...
Anyway, I'm so pleased to hear your son's doing great now, and it was good to see you in print. All the best, Katie Barrett.
