Mister hits the 20-years-of-service mark in February of 2011. He's been threatening to retire at that moment since he hit his 15-years mark. Now more than ever, he's been talking it up, encouraging me to find myself so that we will not be too hard-hit when we lose the bulk of our income when he retires at the end of this year.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday he offered me a list of locations around the world where a person with his qualifications could be given a Special Duty Assignment (SDA) as an Attache, most for 3 years. The details aren't important, the locations are.
One demands males only, as it is a strict Islamic country that is also more in turmoil than not, and is surrounded by unstable countries as well. Some are in Africa, some are in the Balkans. One is in Israel, which seemed to appeal to Mister, as did the one in Hong Kong.
I will admit that I haven't been keen on his retirement. I'm just not ready to leave the safety net of the military. On the other hand, if uprooting my kids--again--is the other option...
The bonus is, once overseas, getting to wherever else we ever wanted to visit would be simply easy! From Hong Kong, visiting the Great Wall, Seoul, Kyoto, Vietnam, even Moscow would be a snap. The Girl would be in anime heaven. The Boy would at least be in a nearer time zone to his best friend from Virginia, who had moved to one of the islands near Japan. Israel is similar--all of Europe (and Asia, even) is just a trainride away. Granted, there's the whole 'we're not getting on with Palestine' thing, but it's generally safer than, for instance, Sudan.
Not sure how I feel about it, want input, etc, etc. If he applies and gets accepted for any of the few that accept his rank, he must be prepared to report by June of 2011. We would obviously follow only after he has secured housing. I've always been apprehensive about moves, even coming back to Augusta where we had lived before, so I expect to lose what little sleep I have regardless. The tough part would be renting our house out again after finally getting it back in order. I may be able to convince my sister to move down here and live in my house, if she could get a job. Perhaps we'd just sell it. I don't know. Again, input, ideas, blah blah.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle K
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
My thoughts are, if you go, Hong Kong sounds like a "better" choice. It's got the bonuses for the young'uns (or at least 2 of 'em); and it's not quite as violence-prone as Israel (though I'm sure they'd not be putting you in a war zone).
As to whether you want, well, that's kind of you. I will say that for the kid-uprooting, you should probably ask them. They're old enough to get it and have opinions.
I was looking forward to retirement, too. Until Saundra recently told me that she has plans - and they do not include me retiring at 20. "D'oh!"
Love and miss you guys!
Mister's just really burnt out on his current job. He's in training, which technically is an on-station TDY. Yet he's still expected to come in before or after training to finish EPRs, awards write-ups (even if someone is better able to do them), and keep up with morale and discipline.
This is all in addition to the 12 monthly hours of extra training he has to perform per his AFSC and 3 hours of PT each week.
I told him I think he needs a change of pace. Do whatever he wants to do; if I can work it out for us to go with, we'll go, if not, I'll leave the kids with Grandma. The Girl will be in college anyway, although she's the one who's raring to go.
I gave him carte blanche to do whatever. Deploy to Afghanistan. Take an SDA. Go to Korea. Just don't leave on a sour note, because that's what we've got going on here. Too much "admin" and not enough "Air Force."
That's the reason my dad got out as a TSgt. He wanted to do the job. As we know (and Eric's getting beat into him), MSgt and better is flying a desk. Not so much doing the job. I've thought about it, too, though Saundra is not too keen on the idea.
first off all i am not leaving. if i have to get a job and buy this house i am not leaving.
Post a Comment