Semper Gumby!

When one joins the military, one learns really fast that there are no guarantees, even when you finally think things are settled.  Once again things are changing for us.  We are no longer moving to Nebraska.  We are instead going to Fort Gordon, Georgia, which is close to Augusta.  And we are thrilled.

There are two types of AF linguists:  ground and airborne.  When Nathan joined the AF, he was given the job of airborne.  At the time we knew some, but very little, about the differences between the two.  As Nathan went through his training, he learned more and more about the jobs and realized that ground was a much better fit for him.  Aparently airborne linguists spend at least half of their time away from home and have about a 90% divorce rate.  Not many people had much good to say about that career field.  So Nathan started trying to switch from air to ground while at the DLI but seemed to run into brick walls at every turn.

Toward the end of 2 years in Monterey, he started having ear issues.  He was feeling a lot of pressure in his ears that he could not relieve.  Going up and down the rather steep hill to and from the DLI every day was torture.  After a LONG process of back and forth between doctors, he had ear tubes put in and he felt instantly better.

When he got to Goodfellow, he had to go see the flight doc.  She was cramming in all sorts of SERE-clearance examinations before she PCS'd out.  She saw the tubes in his ears and decided he didn't need them anymore and yanked them out.  Instantly, all the old problems came back along with an ear infection.  Brilliant lady.  I'm personally happy that she coincidentally got transferred after that.  Anyway, Nathan naturally started seeing doctors again about his ears, and that's when things changed drastically.  Nathan went back to the flight doctor, then a temporary replacement doctor, for a follow up to determine if he would be cleared to move on to SERE school.  This temporary doctor took the time to explain in detail the problems associated with the eustacian tube disfunction that Nathan had when it comes to flying.  Because of his ear problems, flying would be problematic.  Nathan decided to give up his flight status and was switched to ground, which would be heartbreaking to many but was actually exactly what Nathan wanted.

As a result of the job change, our duty station changed.  Offutt is for flyers.  Ground Arabic linguists pretty much always go to either Ft. Meade or Ft. Gordon.  We both really wanted to go to Ft. Meade.  Nathan would like to end up there as a civilian working for the NSA, and I was excited about all the fun and historical stuff to do in that area.  It really is close to everything of note on the east coast.  However, I was really excited about the Fort Gordon prospect as well as I have quite a few friends either there now or getting there soon.  Since most Arabic ground linguists go to Ft. Gordon, we definitely know some great people there.  Also, housing is just ridiculously cheap there, and as we will likely be there for some time, it could be a very good place to buy a first home. And I've been looking forward to that for quite some time.  So it really was win-win, and we are so excited at this change of events.