Erlangen

The next day I marched myself right over to the JAG building and into my NCOIC's office. I was done with this business -- DONE! It seems he was wanting to see me too and all I could think was it had something to do with my tiny little outburst the night before. . . but it didn't. Instead he said to me, "Since we are over crowded here we're sending you to Erlangen. I have a call in and they have room for you. Get your things ready and I'll get a driver for you to . . "

He stopped because I burst into sobs. Yeah, not the most soldierly thing to do, I admit, but I was so physically and emotionally fatigued. Even going AWOL seemed like a viable option at this point. The master sergeant just sat there listening to me ramble and cry, "I don't want to go to Erlangen. I want to stay here. I just want to get settled someplace and stop moving around. I'm tired, I'm tired of not knowing where I'm going to be. My family doesn't even know where I am --only that I left for Germany. I want a bed, a room --I want an address. I want a bathroom that isn't in the next door barracks and isn't locked up at night. I want to do what I signed up for --to work in JAG as a Legal Specialist."

I was pretty sure I had blown everything. Master Sergeant had a very solemn look in his face and just told me I was excused. Erlangen seemed inevitable.

I heard nothing else that day from my NCOIC. That night I went back to my barracks room. My bunk mate was packing her things. I wasn't sure what was going on so I asked her and she said, "I've been reassigned to Erlangen. The driver is taking me tonight." Seems it all worked out though because she was happy to be going. I was happy to be staying.

Later that night I headed back over to the bathroom again. This time, I decided to be nice and sign-in and not throw things at the CQ. There's a different CQ every night so I was at least happy I would not be running into the same person. When I got to the desk I stopped to sign in for the key, the CQ was making rounds but the CQ Runner (assistant, gopher-type) was there. I stopped and every so politely told her I needed to sign in and get the key. She said, "Oh, haven't you heard? We aren't allowed to lock the doors any more and you don't have to sign in just to go to the bathroom. I guess some soldier threw a fit yesterday and we got reported. So just go on in --no need to sign and the doors will be unlocked."

It wasn't until a long while later I found out my NCOIC looked into the bathroom/barracks situation and aside from the insane sign-in process, turns out the locked doors were a fire hazzard. That situation was quickly dealt with. The bathrooms were also where the washing machine dryers were. So it was quite a pain sharing only 2 of each with two entire companies and lugging my laundry over there. One Saturday I put two loads of laundry in and then went back to my room. When I went back up to put them in the dryer, I found that someone had stolen ALL of my civilian clothes. As it was, I didn't have much with me and now that was gone.

It wasn't long before our bathrooms were complete. NOW things are looking up again. I have my own room and I don't have to share the space and we have our own bathrooms. All I needed now was to go shopping for some more civies.