Besides the Sergeants at the in processing center, I didn't tell anyone at Ft. Riley that I was pregnant. It was kind of awkward, you know just meeting people and what was I supposed to say, "Nice to meet you. I'm Sergeant Dodge . . . and I'm pregnant." Besides, I was still coming to terms with the news myself.
I was getting settled into my new duty station and liking really nothing about it. I only had a few personal things with me as my shipment from Germany had not yet arrived. I remember one Saturday afternoon I was so bored in my room so I went out to find something to do. I ended up at the library but it was quite small and nothing of interest for me to check out. There was some sort of TV room or --something so I sat in there for a while watching Saturday afternoon sports, this particular day it was woman's gymnastics. I was so bored.
Legal Assistance was non-stop madness. The 1st Infantry Division was getting ready to deploy for REFORGER (Return of Forces to Germany). It was a huge annual exercise the Army conducted in well uh, in Germany. When I was at 1st AD our Division also participated in REFORGER but I was never involved in any of that, I stayed behind at headquarters.
So before a soldier can deploy all of his/her personal business has to be in order. Soldiers are required to have a Last Will and Testament and any applicable Power of Attorney, leaving legal authority for someone to conduct your stateside business in your absence. This could cover but not be limited to; registering your vehicles, banking, signing leases, etc. If you were dual military parents (both Mom and Dad in military) or a single military parent you also had to arrange for care for your children and have medical power of attorney for their care, etc. Besides the obvious military preparations that were required for such a major deployments, every soldier had to get their personal business in order too.
Enter Legal Assistance. That's what we were there for --assist the soldiers. Many of them would make an appointment and come into the office but often times we, a JAG attorney and myself, would go to the units and set up shop for an hour or two. JAG was also required to be at each deployment site for any last minute legal matters that came up. Most of these deployments were 2 or 3am so I'd have to be up and in uniform and literally have a field table and manual typewriter set up right at the deployment site. Luckily for me, this duty was shared through out the entire division JAG offices (the battalions and brigades) so I wasn't required to be at all of them. Doing one of them was quite enough, if you ask me.
What I liked about Legal Assistance is that you really were helping soldiers. Though I wasn't allowed to give any legal advice, I often would ask a soldier to reconsider a choice he made. For instance, some soldiers would name a person as executor of their will or beneficiary of their insurance and when I'd ask the relation to them a solider would say, "That's my girl friend." Red flag. "Soldier, how long have you been dating this girl?" You would be surprised to know that more often times than not, the relationship had been very short term. In one instance, a soldier told me he just met the girl the weekend before and when I urged him to reconsider he said, "But you don't understand, I'm going to marry her when I get back." My boss, the OIC (Officer in Charge) of Legal Assistance didn't necessarily like me trying to advise the soldiers and not necessarily for any legal reason but for time sake because we could literally have 100 or more soldiers waiting to be seen. Sometimes if the line wasn't moving very fast my OIC would say to me, "Sergeant, less advising, more typing." But when I thought a young soldier was making a poor choice, I couldn't just let that go. I'd ask the soldier, "Are your parents alive? Siblings?"
More so that the Will, the real killer was the General Power of Attorney. I saw time and time again where a soldier gave his pretty little girlfriend of two weeks a General Power of Attorney and by the time that soldier got back on US soil his bank account was depleted, credit cards maxed out, bills unpaid, cars repossessed, etc. It was shameful how these soldiers would deploy in service to their country and these girls would just totally wipe them out. I'm certain too that the girls knew exactly what they were doing --they knew how to hook them a solider and they knew the ropes. Once I saw that happening quite frequently, I was more apt to speak up and try to get a soldier to change his mind. In the long run, it was the soldier's decision to make and even in some regards, the parents were the ones taking advantage of their deployed sons so you know, you just had to ask a lot of questions and try to lead the soldier in the right direction.
One time this really young soldier came in. He couldn't have yet been 19. So he comes in and needs a power of attorney but yet he doesn't want one. He had seen some of his buddies get screwed over. So he comes in and said his First Sergeant sent him to JAG and told him he had no choice but to get a POA. Right away something didn't seem right so I started asking a lot of questions. He didn't have any family members. He had been raised in and tossed about in the foster care system his entire childhood and had no real family of his own to claim. He was giving full POA to his girlfriend but I could tell he was very uncomfortable with it. So I advised him, which was legally true, that he did not have to have a POA at all and I told him his First Sergeant couldn't make him do it. I said, "If you aren't comfortable signing this document you don't have to do that." He seemed so relieved when he heard that so then he went back to his unit and told his 1SG the JAG Sergeant said he didn't have to have a POA. It was no time at all before I got a phone call and this 1SG was SCREAMING at me, "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TELLING MY SOLDIER WHAT HE DOES OR DOES NOT NEED? I WON'T HAVE SOME SNOT NOSED SERGEANT E5 TELLING MY SOLDIERS WHAT THEY DO OR DO NOT NEED. I'M SENDING THAT SOLDIER BACK DOWN TO JAG AND IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU, MY SOLDIER WILL COME BACK WITH A POA. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME, SERGEANT E5?" A short while later this poor soldier comes back in looking like a whipped puppy dog with his tail between his legs. He came in and said, "1SG sent me back." I felt so bad for him. I guess he got chewed out pretty badly and it was all my fault. So I typed his POA up and got him all "squared away". I thought about him for a long time after that.
That was the soldier side of Legal Assistance. We also had a civilian side and that was 90% domestic matters, mostly doing a Legal Separation for soldiers. Legally, it was a complete divide of marital property, spousal support, child custody, etc only the marriage was still legally in tact. Because of a conflict of interest, we could only represent one spouse and the other spouse had to seek legal counsel from another Legal Assistance office that we called "The Hill" because the office was situated at the top of a hill. So our office would represent the first one that came in. One time a wife came in and she told me she wanted a legal separation. When I looked in our files I saw that her husband had already been in our office for counsel so I tried to explain to her we could not help her but that she could go to another attorney. She was a Hispanic woman that spoke very little English so she really wasn't understanding what I was trying to tell her. She thought I was telling her she couldn't get a Legal Separation and then she started crying and begging me to help her. She kept saying, "But he cheating on me, he cheating!" I tried to calm her down and explain to her she just needed to go to another office. She's crying and all hysterical and reaches into her purse. I had a moment of panic as I wasn't sure what exactly she was going for --she pulls out this huge stack of pictures, throws them onto my desk and yells, alternating speaking in Spanish and English, "LOOK! I TELL YOU --HE CHEATER. HE CHEATING!" I pick up the pile of pictures and I quickly slammed them down onto my desk and grabbed and envelope and started stuffing them into it. "Ma'me, you shouldn't be showing these to people. Where did you get these?" Through her broken English I was finally able to understand she found them under her mattress. She went to change the bed sheets and found these pictures stuffed in between the mattress and box spring. She absolutely refused to leave and took the pictures back out of the envelope and was shoving them in my face and saying, "LOOK WHAT HE DO TO ME. LOOK! WE HAVE FAMILY! WE HAVE KIDS!"
The stack of pictures were of her husband having sex with other women . . . very pornographic horrible pictures. She refused to leave and she kept waving these pictures around so I went to my OIC and tried to get him to come out and help me. He refused. As soon as I told him he was representing the husband he said, "Sergeant, you know I can't go out there and talk to her and you've already told me too much. There's nothing we can do. If she doesn't understand English we can't help her. You need to get her to leave. Give her the referral to The Hill. That's all we can do."
I was infuriated! I felt so helpless. I finally got her to leave but I don't think she really ever understood what I was trying to tell her. She took the referral paper with her, hopefully she got legal help.
There was another woman that came in for help that I'll never forget. She was Korean and also spoke broken English and also was seeking a legal separation from her soldier husband. I'll never forget her.
You'll meet her tomorrow.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Legal Assistance Ft. Riley Style
Posted by Melissa's Military Moments at 6:00 AM
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