Quote:
Originally Posted by Marwan
i understand about the parrpts bill, what i cant understand is, if you were living in hawaii WHY DID YOU MOVE!!!!! 
cheers |
The damn Marine Corps made me do it, and sooner than expected.
Hawaii was my first duty station after Officers Basic School and Artillery School, and it was supposed to be a three year tour. I met my wife on Waikiki (I was only there because it was one of those rare days when it was too rough to dive on any side of Oahu) and my son was born there. But then I put in for flight school, and got accepted too quickly. They sent me orders to flight school and my three year tour was cut to 27 months. We cried on the way up the steps to the plane taking us away from the island.
I almost made it back. The Marine Corps policy was that if you had been there, you couldn't go back until everyone else had been there. Every six months we got fitness reports (performance evaluations) and were always permitted to list our first three choices for next duty station. During flight school (about 15 months) I kept listing Hawaii first choice, and people kept telling me I was wasting my time since I had already been there. And I always replied that then the Marine Corps could give me my second or third choice if it wanted to, but I wasn't going to pass up another chance at Hawaii by not telling them that I wanted to go.
Lo and behold, when I was about to get my wings, my orders back to Hawaii arrived. But then on the day that the movers were in my house packing up our things, I got a call modifying my orders. The squadrons that I would have been able to join in Hawaii were about to go to Vietnam, so there was no way for a new pilot to get trained in the particular aircraft. My wife and kids were out at the base getting the required innoculations, and I called out there and told them to get out of the line. We were so damned disappointed.
Later, I did get two different one week R&Rs in Hawaii from Vietnam, and my wife flew out from the West Coast to meet me, so those were great times, but we never got stationed there again.
Sorry for the long derail.
