What to do..My life plans just got turned upside down...

[eatgoodfood]

So as Im about to leave last night our Retention NCO walks into my office and says that USAEUR put out a new involentary sep list and my name was on it. This means that the Army can cut my contract up to 1 year from my current ETS date. My wife and I had everything figured out, I would be getting out next december, we are staying here in Germany, she would be done with college by then and have a job, and I would have had the next year to improve my German and find a job. Now I am stuck with basically 3 options. I can 1) Re-enlist, not going that route for sure, 2) Extend to meet the requirements for my units up-coming deployment, 3) Not do anything, and hope the Army only cuts my contract by a few months, not a year.

The wife and I are leaning towards the extending to meet the requirements because its really just too risky if my contract gets cut that short since we could lose everything. The wife is not happy about me going to Afghanistan again. The other issue, which just kills me, is she said she cannot handle taking care of all my animals while Im deployed. This is going to be my second breeding season, and hopefully my first successful, especially with all the females I will be breeding this year. She said she would want to keep a few, but she cant handle all 16. That leaves me with 2 options, sell them off, or hope our breeding partner would be willing to care for them, but Im not so sure he has the space, or the time, considering he owns a reptile store. I am just so lost as to what to do. I will be getting some more information this morning that will hopefully make this decision easier. Im hoping if I extend I will be able to find a way to get left back on rear D, giving me time to square away a job, get some more college under my belt and keep my animals.

Life always throws me curve balls....

[eatgoodfood]

Well I guess my wife and I were stressing for nothing. Like always in the military there is always an exception to police, and someone thinks im worthy of it so my personnel action is being signed today to keep my ets as it is.

[EAC Reptiles]

Glad everything worked out for you and your future plans.

[eatgoodfood]

Cant tell the wife this, but I was more stressed out about having to get rid of my snakes than I was about deploying again, lol.

[gsarchie]

Well this is the first that I have actually seen the drawdown starting to affect people first hand. I know that my selection rate for CPT had dropped from the high 90th percentile to around the 80th percentile (which I fully support as I have seen some terrible captains in my 10 years in the Army) but never anything like this. I'm sorry to hear about this and that it has screwed up your plans, but hopefully you can stick it out until next December. Either way, once you get out you can still make full use of your GI Bill, even in Germany. Did you buy all of your snakes in Germany and if so, what morphs are available over there?

[gsarchie]

Of course we get excited about deployments, man! We finally get to go do what we train our whole careers to do (if you are combat arms, anyway).

[eatgoodfood]

I am infantry, so yep. As for morphs and what not, just about the same as in the states, prices are a bit higher. Just some of the rarer in the states and really expensive are not here, or I atleast have not seen any on the market. Coral Glow for example I really dont think anyone her has any, or their just not selling any.

[eatgoodfood]

There have been alot of people here given the same involuntary seperation options I was given. Likely due to te combination of the Army downsizing and USAEUR really downsizing.

[gsarchie]

I'd be willing to be that it has to dow with the fact that you are in Germany and part of USAEUR, or at least making that link seems logical.

[GummiBear]

My husband got cut from the guard, we were hoping to make it to retirement, 13 years in!
It was a blow but at least now he can focus on his civilian career without distraction.
I'm glad everything worked out for you! Its rough when life plans change and you can't do crap about it!
I'm also glad you don't have to worry about your animals! my husband and I decided it was good he was the one that was i'm deployments because he would be lost taking care of all the critters, even though I try to get him as involved as possible...
Most people don't understand what makes the drive for deployments but in my sight, if you don't get excited for deployments then its time to get out!

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