Emergency Leave Orders

After dropping Jerry off at the airport in Kansas City, I drove back to Ft. Riley knowing I was just going to turn around and come right back.  I get back to my apartment and start a flurry of phone calls.  First I checked in with my unit letting them know I'd be picking up my Emergency Leave orders but . . .they had none.  No call.  WHAT?  So I spent the next hour or so calling back and forth to my sister, the hospital my Mom was in, the Red Cross, my unit . . . . .and if you would imagine with me all this pre computer days and pre cell phone days.  Heck, I didn't even have a cordless phone!  I remember talking on the phone pacing back and forth in my apartment --as far as the cord would allow.  So you know, it wasn't like someone could just log onto a computer and see the progression of the Emergency Leave status . . . we were paper pushers back then.  Paper pushers and long distance phone bills.

Making a long story short, I waited hours and hours for my leave orders to get approved and no one seemed to know where the kink in the line was.  In the meantime, I was on the phone with the airlines and I kept pushing back my flight because I was not able to leave until I had orders.  The Army considers that AWOL. 

Picture this with me if you will --- just hours ago I put Jerry on a plane back to Germany knowing I wasn't going to see or talk to him (too expensive to call over seas) for 4-5 months and during that time, I was going through a pregnancy alone.  And now I'm dealing with my Mom's emergency and without the benefit of being near or with my family.  My other sisters, Val and Sam, lived near each other so they were together during all of this and in fact, by this time they were already on their way to Florida to be at Mom's side.  I was stuck in Kansas in some bureaucratic Army red tape madness.

After making what seemed like 100 calls, I finally decided I couldn't sit around and wait any longer.  I was running out of flight options to ensure I'd be with Mom before she went into surgery early the next morning.  I hopped into my car and decided to drive to my unit and if nothing else, I'd type the **** Emergency Leave orders myself!  It was after duty hours so the offices at the unit were closed.

I get to my unit and I'm DONE asking questions so I walk over to the CQ desk and pick up the log.  Every call/visitor/incident has to be logged in.  So I run down the log and look for a Red Cross call.  None.  The CQ was like, "Sergeant, can I help you?"  I angrily said, "No, I'm done waiting for help."  The CQ was already familiar with what was going on because I had called him over and over explaining to him I was waiting on some orders.  Now being the Red Cross call was not in the CQ log means the call came in (if in fact it did, at this point I wasn't exactly sure what happened but the Red Cross assured me they called my unit) during duty hours.  I look at the CQ and tell him a Red Cross came in and we needed to find the paperwork, get it signed and the Sergeant said, "Well, I can't really do anything but we can wait until the morning when the 1SG or CO come in . . ." 

WAIT UNTIL MORNING?????????????  Apparently, this soldier had LOST HIS MIND! 

"Sergeant, I do not have the option of waiting until morning.  I have everyone standing by waiting for these orders; I have 3 or 4 different flight reservations on hold, I have my sisters waiting, I have a 2 hour drive to the airport, the Red Cross is waiting to cut me a check and most importantly, MY MOTHER IS WAITING TO SEE ME.  Now, waiting is not an option.  So, if a Red Cross call comes in during the duty day, who would have taken that call?"

The Sergeant and I start brain storming on what could have happened and thinking about who at the company would be the most likely to have taken the call, we called that soldier at home.  It was a female and she remembered the call.  THANK GOD FINALLY SOMEONE KNOWS SOMETHING!  She said, "Oh yeah, that call came in today about 1500 hours.  I typed the Leave Orders and gave them to the CO."  The Sergeant and I then head over to the CO's office and there before my eyes --UNSIGNED EMERGENCY LEAVE ORDERS! 

UNSIGNED.

IGNORED.