So, here's the deal

Okay, it's time to update you all on what's going on with us career-wise. I've been dancing around this  topic all summer. I've gradually started telling people what's up, and now I'm starting to lose track of who I've told what.  So that means it's time to update everyone with a blog post.

Let's just rip the band-aid off quickly:

Brandon is not returning to flight school, and he's leaving the Army.

And we are moving within the next two months.

Crazy huh?

I'm sure you have a ton of questions so let's do a little Q and A.  Starting with the obvious one:

Why is Brandon not in flight school?

There are a lot of reasons.  Basically the simplest answer is that Brandon is good at learning, and he's good at handling stress, but he can't learn under stressful circumstances.  And Army Flight School is just one long stress-fest.  Plus Brandon doesn't sleep well anyway, and the stress was making it so he wasn't sleeping well at all.  The lack of sleep made it so he couldn't remember what he was supposed to learn so that led to more stress, and more sleep loss, and the whole thing spiraled down from there.
Even with all the stress and sleep problems Brandon was willing to just put his head down and keep pushing through it. However, after talking to several of the higher ups, he realized that this probably wasn't the best course of action.  According to the higher ups, things didn't get less stressful after graduation.  Brandon wasn't looking forward to years of stress as an Army Pilot.

Brandon had pretty much made up his mind about leaving the flight program when we got a visit from our home teachers (for my non-LDS friends, home teachers are men from church who are assigned to check in on several families once a month).  One of our home teachers is also a flight student who is a few months ahead of Brandon.  We told them some of what was going on and our home teacher talked about how he thinks of Flight School as downhill skiing.  He talked about how he fells like he always has to be on the lookout for obstacles to avoid as he's speeding down the hill toward graduation. This metaphor was helpful, but probably not in the way that our home teacher intended.  

After he left I turned to Brandon and said something like, "yes, you need to leave flight school because we have never ONCE thought of this as downhill."

For us flight school has always seemed like an uphill climb. Think back over the past few years.  SERE, HOST, and WOCS were all extremely difficult for Brandon to complete, heck even putting in his Warrant Officer Packet was like pulling teeth.  And honestly the only reason he made it through the Primary Phase of flight school was that he was already a private pilot with an instrument rating.  He was already very familiar with a lot of the flight concepts they were learning.  

As we considered whether or not Brandon should complete Advanced Training we realized that yes, he could keep climbing this mountain.  And he might make it to the top. But we started to question whether or not this was even the mountain that he should be climbing.  Brandon and I both admitted that finishing flight school wasn't something he should do.

So why is Brandon leaving the Army?

Brandon has never felt at home in the Army. All the saluting, and the rank system, and the bureaucracy have annoyed him to say the least. He's put up with it all in order to fly. Now that he can't fly he doesn't want to be in the Army anymore.

Can't he transfer to a different job in the Army?

He could, but most of them would require him to go back to being an enlisted soldier until he meets the requirements to be a Warrant Officer again.  That would mean a pay cut in $1000 a month, and we just don't want to do that.  Plus there's that who thing of not actually liking being a soldier unless he gets to fly.

How is he getting out of the Army so quickly? Doesn't he owe them more time?
If he'd finished advanced training he'd owe the Army 6 more years of service - whether in a cockpit or not.  But he didn't finish advanced training.  Perhaps in a different time they would have still wanted him to finish his initial 5 year enlisted contract, but the Army is currently downsizing the number of soldiers.  Every person they can get out voluntarily is one less person they have to cut involuntarily.   So it's not a big problem for him to get out.

Is he getting out with a Medical Discharge?
Brandon has met with some sleep specialists, but they couldn't find any medical causes for his sleep problems.  So they aren't classifying it as a medical problem.  If his sleep problems stemmed from PTSD or a traumatic brain injury he'd get a medical discharge.  But that's not the case.

So why are you moving so fast? Didn't you say you had 6 months to a year left in Alabama?
Well part of the reason is that we didn't realize that 3 months had gone by, and yet we were still saying we'd be here for 6 months to a year.  But even then we are still getting out sooner than expected.  Basically, the paperwork for Brandon to get out of the Army is progressing faster than originally anticipated.

So now what? What job does Brandon want to have now?
He still loves aviation, so he'd love a job in that field.  Right now his top job pick is with the FAA  (Federal Aviation Administration) as an electronic technician. Long time readers of this blog will remember that 5 years ago Brandon was trying to get that job with the FAA.  That plan ended when he was told that if he had military experience he would have a better chance of getting the job.  He joined the Army partly because of that.

He's interested in other aviation related jobs too so if you have any leads or suggestions please pass them on to us.

Where do you want to live?
We want to live in the Intermountain West.  Utah would be great, but he'd have to have a dang good job for us to be able to afford the house prices there.  Colorado is one place we'd be interested in living.  For some reason Boise keeps coming to mind. Really anywhere that we can have a good income with a low cost of living.

What are you going to do while Brandon looks for a job?
We are going to TEMPORARILY move in with his parents near Ogden, Utah.  We've always been really resistant to the idea of living with either set of parents.  But in this case it just makes the most sense.  Honestly, no matter how I run the scenario in my head we end up at his parents for a few weeks anyway.  See, Brandon hasn't been to Utah or seen most of his family in almost 3 years.  If he did have a job right out of the Army we'd probably try to plan an extended trip to Utah before he started the job.  Or if he gets a job with the FAA there is a three month training in Oklahoma that he'd have to attend, and I'd probably move in with his parents during that time. So it's really not a stretch to just plan on stopping over there no matter what.  

Everyone in the family is THRILLED about this idea.  The kids are excited to live with their grandparents.  The grandparents are excited to see the kids after so many years apart.  Brandon is excited to actually live in the house that his parents started designing when he was a teenager.  And I'm, well, I'm happy for everyone else.

Honestly, I'm not looking forward to the idea of being a stay at home mom in my in-laws house. I just feel like no matter how nice everyone is I'll always feel like my kids and I are doing something wrong or messing something up. And that's why we decided that the best thing to do while we are there is for me to be the working parent and Brandon to stay home.

Both of us are excited about this idea. This will give Brandon time to focus on his job hunt.  And I'd be able to get some recent job experience on my resume.  So if anyone knows of any temporary office type jobs in the Ogden area please let me know.  I'd even be fine with call center stuff.

So what was the point of joining the Army and going to Flight School if it was all going to end like this?
Ha, I've asked myself that plenty of times in the past several months.  

There is a story about a man whom God asked to push on a boulder.  The man pushed with all his strength for years and yet the boulder didn't move.  Many times he felt he was failing and thought about giving up.  Finally God appeared to the man and the man told him that he'd failed him because he wasn't able to move the boulder.  And God replied with, "I didn't ask you to move it, I just wanted you to push on it."  He explained that by pushing on the boulder the man had become stronger and proved his loyalty.  And then God moved the boulder.

I've thought about that story a lot during the past few months.  I think the Army and Flight School have been the boulder for Brandon and I.  We thought that Heavenly Father wanted Brandon to graduated from Flight School.  But now I think he just wanted to teach Brandon and I that we could do hard things.

So no matter how scary this next phase of life is, (and trust me I'm really scared about a lot of it) I know that we'll figure it out.

But please keep us in your thoughts and prayers because the next few months are going to be full of changes.