They plan to have five or six women lined up to meet me by the time I get back to the states. This newest one doesn't seem so bad. From what they tell me she's a registered accountant with her own house...and this one at least is 24. That's a lot better than the college sophmore they introduced me to last october.

What follows is more boring financial shit...but it's 5AM and I'm bored so just skip the next two paragraphs...

-------Start of boring financial shit--------------------------

I sent one of my credit card companies a request to lower my APR. I'm planning to pay that one off and cancel it, but i figured I'd give them a chance to make it worth keeping. Well...they lowered me a whole whopping 1%. I told them, thanks, go ahead and do that, but I'm still gonna cut my card up in a couple months.

After that I put a credit limit increase request in on my good credit card (9.65% is pretty darn good). If they approve it I can pay off the car with it then cancel the obligatory car insurance. This is the car that's been sitting in my parents garage for a year and I've been literally throing money away to keep it insured. If I don't throw the money away though, Ford Credit will instill their OWN insurance which'll be like three or four times what I'm paying now...

-------End of boring financial shit----------------------

It came up in a chat session with sockgirl today that I never talk about work, which has led to questions about what it is exactly that I DO in the military. My response was that whenever I've tried to talk my days in the office, it's always come across as boring...I don't find my job boring, it's just hard to put it in exciting terms...

SO...because of that, here comes a description of just what it is I DO all damn day long...and I've *tried* to NOT be boring:

-----Start of Paralegal and Military Duties Talk------

My Military Ocupational Speciality (MOS) is 27D. That's army talk for "paralegal". There's a lot of things that go into being a paralegal for the military--some things are a lot like civilian paralegals, some wholly different...

Like a traditional paralegal, I prepare and manage legal paperwork: Court martial charges and related correspondance, summarized transcripts of sessions, pre and post trial documents, etc. I am also sole proprietor of the all so dreaded Article 15s...basically that's where the unit commander looks at how you fucked up and then fucks you up because of it. It's a really compressed court proceeding, really, with it's own set of rules. If you're interested in hearing more about article 15s, just let me know. Believe me, I could talk for hours on the subject. I'm having to constrain myself as it is. Article 15s comprise the brunt of my court actions.

As the Battalion Paralegal, I am responsible for the filing and processing of all investigations that involve my unit's personal. That means I spend a lot of time with the Military Police. It also means that I have to basically oversee all investigations my unit conducts on it's own...things like missing munitions, sky diving accidents, soldiers that go absent without leave, etc. I also have to process traffic tickets (which is a HUGE pain in the ass).

Another large part of my job is handling the "firing" of soldiers, if you will. As you have probably heard, there is no greater job security than that provided by the armed forces. However...it IS possible to get kicked out for misconduct, personality disorders, inadequate family care plan, homosexuality (all of which I have done) and other reasons (most of which I have ALSO done). I handle those actions and the mountain of paperwork that it requires. These are called administrative separations, and I've done a TON of them. Some of them are like "slam bam thank you ma'am" and some take six months to complete.

I also draft Powers of Attorney and perform other notarial services at times. That doesn't happen often although I get requests daily to do so. I don't it often because of a regulatory interpretation the Lawyers down the street made. In order to do these sorts of things, I have to be under the "direct supervision" of the Lawyers. They don't consider being down the street "direct supervision". Sometimes neccesity dictates that I do it anyways.

On pretty much a daily basis, I am also called upon to research various legal issues that arise. This research means my nose in the books - army regulations, armed forces regulations, policy letters, United States Code, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice - and a lot of consultation with the actual Lawyers.

All of the above are things that happen in "normal" units. Being in a Special Forces unit, there's an entirely different set of duties that fall under the blanket term "Operational Law". This is mostly Rules of Engagement, Human Rights, and the Laws of War...some of which contains classified material. Part of all this requires me to give annual presentations to my entire battalion (which is about half of all the Army personel assigned to the United States Army Japan), and occasionally even mission specific briefings on law to the various Special Forces A Teams.

Finally...being in a foreign country, I deal with a lot of International Law as well. The United States and the Government of Japan (GOJ) have a standing agreement about the handling of crimes committed by US Service Members and their Dependents on Japanese soil or involving Japanese citizens (the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA). You may have heard about the Air Force Soldier who raped a Japanese citizen last year on Okinawa...while I didn't have anything to do with that particular case, those are the sort of issues I have to deal with at times. Luckily, most of my involvement in this sector comprises of traffic accidents.

And that, as brief as I could make it, is a description of my various responsibilities at work. With all of that, you'd wonder why I spend so much time twiddling my thumbs. Part of it, I guess, is that I'm just too efficient or something. Another part of it is that military law is quirky. One day, one week, even one month sometimes, there won't be anything going on. Then *bam* there's a DUI over the weekend, a soldier involved in an assault case, a soldier being disrespectful to an officer, or *whatever*. What happens in a few minutes can provide me enough work to stay busy for weeks, or even months. What's worse is all this shit seems to happen all at once.

And that, of course, is just my speciality, my job in the office. There are all the "soldier things" as well. I went to Basic Training, Advanced Individual Training, Airborne School, Primary Leadership Development Course, and Combat Lifesaver Course. I go the firing range. I pull 24 Hour Staff Duty, head count, and guard duty at times. Every other month or so I fall out of a perfectly good airplane and steer a parachute to the ground. Every morning I get up at 0530 and go to Physical Training. I am licensed to drive "hummers" and other military vehicles like fmtvs (large trucks) and 80 Pax ("cattle cars"). I am even licensed to drive buses believe it or not. Of course, since arriving in Okinawa, the only military vehicle I've driven is the staff duty van, but i drove an FMTV and a hummer a LOT while back at Fort Bragg (those things are AWESOME fun to go mud bogging in!) I've also done things like water survival and combatants training a few times. 

As a soldier I am required to deploy with my unit and "go to the field". Unfortunetly for me, I've only spent about two weeks out in the field in my entire military career, in short stints of a few days here, a few days there. I would *love* to go out on a "real" training exercise to Thailand or the Phillipines or wherever but my luck just sucks. Even after I fought my way into a high speed unit, where I thought for *sure* I'd get to go all over the place, I haven't left Okinawa or in the course of my duties (unless you count the school I went to last month, which I don't).

-----End of Paralegal and Military Duties Talk------

So there you go. That pretty much sums up what I've done for the last three and a half years, and what I'll be doing for yet one more year until, I leave the service. I hope I managed to keep it manageable enough to read through and digest. If not, well...I don't blame you for having bailed early on...it's a lot to read. It took a while to write. 

current mood:  accomplished
current music: Pearl Jam 07.22.98  
 
 
 

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