Why I left

A disclaimer on the following: Looking back on this entry, I was definitely a bit hot under the collar. I wrote this not long after I returned from my deployment, which was shortly before my time was up. The emotions were clearly running high, so consider that grain of salt. I'm leaving it as originally written since not only is it still true, but the emotions were still valid, even though I have definitely leveled out over time. I highly recommend you read the Family Impact page for a more level-headed recount of my time. 

Wow. My time is up - It's hard to believe. It flew by in some ways and dragged on in others. Overall, I am happy I did this and grateful for the opportunities the Army has given me: I got to not think about debt, I did a residency in Hawaii, I bought a "starter house" that was way nicer than I could have afforded fresh out of civilian training, I got 12 weeks of paternity leave, I got thousands of dollars of credit card benefits for free each year, I got free and unlimited health care for my family and me and the list goes on... The problem is that none of this could outweigh what the Army took away:

I was not given the duty station I was promised (unlike the rest of my residency class); I was the only one from my residency class of seven to get deployed, and I missed 20% of my son's and 15% of my daughter's lives at that point.

Now I can feel trolls/nay-sayers coming, and I will freely admit it: The Army does not owe me a follow-through on a 1:1 match for duty station, and deployment is inevitable. The Army didn't do anything "wrong," but that doesn't mean it doesn't feel that way. If that's how they want to play the game, that's fine. Is it smart? Most certainly not. I was the only one in my residency class who was open to staying past my commitment. I was the only one who didn't bad-mouth the Army for its various shortcomings or inefficiencies, and heck, I made this website/blog, which has given the program some fairly substantial support over the years. 

The Army made the poor decision to have me be the only one in my class not to get their first choice of duty station (despite my 1:1 match), and I am the only one who was deployed despite having a family. Now, this is not meant to say that the time or lives of my co-residents are less valuable because they don't have children; on the contrary - I really enjoyed the deployment intrinsically, but it had a heavy impact on my family. 

My overall issue with the Army and the reason(s) I am getting out is two-fold: They hurt my family, and they have broken my trust. 

The deployment was incredibly hard on my children and wife. My wife and I have done long-distance in the past, so this would not have been an issue for just the two of us, but the kids put a whole new spin on things. I don't want to get into it, but to put it simply, they had a hard time. Who knows the impact this has had on our relationship in the long term?

Speaking of trust, they say that people not getting their 1:1 match is an extremely rare occurrence. It happened to me, and it happened to every person I tried to hire for the one cycle I was in a position to interview and hire candidates for various positions in my unit. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but either way, I've had enough of these antics. I don't appreciate false/weak promises, and I don't want to subject my family to the life lottery. Would I still have been deployed if I had gotten my promised duty station? Would I have volunteered to continue serving? The Army could not have picked a worse person in my residency class to screw over. 

*DEEP BREATH*

I am grateful for the scholarship, I am grateful for the chance to explore the US and visit places I would never have otherwise, and I am grateful to the tens of thousands of people who have read this website and to the writers of the hundreds of e-mails of questions and thanks I have received over the years. 

Everyone has different priorities and peeves in life. When I think of myself, I could do this forever. When I think of what is best for my family, it appears the Army is not the place for us. I signed up for HPSP five and a half years before my first was born. I could never have predicted I would have felt the way I do now, but here we are. 

It was an honor to serve in the Army, and it was an honor to serve all of you. 

Josh