I think I set a new command record by being written up twice in one day on two separate occasions. A write up in the navy is called a "councelling chit." Both stories end up my fault, but in my opinion honest mistakes. Both stories though pissed off the wrong person, and I need take my licks to learn from my mistake no matter how honest it is/was.
So there I was, standing Thursday duty. Standing duty consists of staying at the clinic overnight in case there is an emergency call, and we can be close to jumping in the action. It was my first night as the EVOC driver, aka ambulance driver. Up until this day I have never had to respond to an emergency phone call. On Friday's the clinic doesn't open until 0830 because the command has PT from 0645-0745. On any other day the duty crew is woken up at 0600, but on Friday's, because the clinic opens up so late, sometimes we are allowed to sleep till 0700. So 0600 rolls around and I haven't heard anything over the intercom yet, and no one has come to get me yet. I'm not going to get up earlier than I have to, and just stand around more than I have to, and I think that is typical for anyone. That's why I stayed in bed and kept one ear open to be woken up. O700 comes and my alarm goes off to get up. As I'm sitting up in bed wiping sleep from my eyes there is a call over the intercom, and I quote, "Duty crew to the back desk." In my mind I thought that was the code to get up. So I put on my pants, blouse them, and I'm ambling down the hallway when someone comes running down the hallway coming to get me. "Rastall! Let's go, there's a call!" When I get to the back desk the ambulance was already running ready to go (my job). Though I haven't signed anything yet, that'll be for tomorrow, I'm certain my write-up will be that I took too long to respond to a call.
To piggyback off that, there was my first emergency call. A chief-selectee had suspected heat stroke at Nimitz Park, our PT field/track. Luckily it wasn't heat stroke, but later diagnoised as heat synecope. I haven't heard of it either. It was scary, but a learning experience. There was plenty that could have been done better, but we loaded him up and went. On my first day on the job too! Grumblegrumble.
This next story gets a little more complex, and there is a lot of military/navy jargon, but I'll try to break it down Barney-style. Before I go any further, I must explain what a chief is. A chief petty officer (CPO, or LCPO if they are in your chain of command which stands for "leading chief petty officer") is simply called "Chief." The chief's mess is the world's biggest, most closely knit fraternity in the world. It is known that chief's run the navy. In our 11 general orders for standing sentry there is an unspoken 12 general order, "the chief is never late, he is only detained." There are 3 levels of chiefs: chief, senior chief, master chief (e7-e9). I have been noted to say I'd rather be a chief than an officer. Just by achieving the rank of a chief grants you automatic respect, and the chief is in a league of their own. Robert De Niro in "Men of Honor" was a chief. Having said this, a chief has to earn this rank more than any other rank in my opinion in the navy. They are the essence in what a leader is. A good chief will mentor and lead his juniors even though it would take an act of Congress to demote a chief. Reaching chief is like reaching tenure in the navy.
My LCPO will be just called Chief in this story. I learned a valuable lesson in this story: no matter what I'm about to do, I must always ask myself this one question before moving forward with it, "does Chief know about it?" If not, then it isn't a very good idea. The bottom line to this story was I was the bus driver and I ran my chief over. Now, Chief Bennett to me is a good chief. He is very knowledgable, experienced, a human being, and has played this game for almost 19 years. He could say that he was apart of the "old navy." He has been a mentor to many people, and I'm self-proclaiming that I'm his next project, but not before a little hiccup or two.
Earlier this week, Wednesday to be exact, we had a long talk after working hours, like 1 1/2 hours of his time. We talked about about all ends of the spectrum. It was a invigorating talk, and I found the motivation to not want to beg him to quit EMT class. We also talked about my tuition assistance (TA), and how part of it was denied. Chief had talked to the OIC (Officer-in-Charge aka Commanding Officer of the clinic) already about it and passed what she said onto me. Okay, so it was a good talk, and I left.
This is Thursday now. All e4-e5 have an OIC call. That's when the OIC comes and talks to us separately from the rest of the command, and where we can field our questions to her. So enroute to the meeting I check my mailbox and my TA chit is in it with a note saying (paraphrase), "LT (my department head) reccommends I talk to the OIC about what part of my chit was denied." Wondering if something came up from my talk with chief or what, after the OIC call I popped in her office and asked her about the TA. She essentially told me the same thing Chief did, and obviously so. When she answered my question, I left, not thinking anything about what I just did wrong. I got a note from my Department Head, a commisioned officer, recommending I talk to the OIC about something. Since I didn't think it was a big deal to ask her a quick question, I did what I did, and left.
Not so. There is a right way and a wrong way of doing what I did. I was supposed to route a chit through my chain of command informing them that I wished to speak to the OIC. The irony about this though is I didn't wish to speak to her, I was recommended by someone higher in my chain of command to. Because I didn't route that chit to talk to the OIC, I left my chain in the dark, most importantely my chief. That's why he got so upset with me on Friday when the OIC asked him if he knew that I talked to her. For this, I recieved a counelling chit.
My day from Hell didn't end there. This next part is really "bad," but overdue and needed if I get rational, but still embarrassing. So Chief was councelling me. Not yelling, but letting me know I fudged up real good. He seemingly reiterated everything over and over. In my head all I could think about was this would not have happened if my LT didn't recommend I talk to her. After the 5th time of telling me the same thing, I finally burst out just that. I was pissed, it was a burst in anger. Wrong idea. This changed Chief's gears and asked me if I had anger managment issues (because a good military-bearing sailor does not yell at his chief). Because of my history, I admitted to him that I did.
Chief noticed from our talks and how I just acted towards him that something deep inside me was bothering me. The truth is that he's right. Anyone who follows this blog knows it. I try to vent it by explaining to the world in this blog just what is up, what's going on inside my head. Chief asked me if I wanted to go to counceling, and I agreed that I should. Later that day he made an appointment for me, and met me at the councellor's office. Like I said, he is a good chief and he is looking out for me, but it's such shitty terms that it had to come down to this. The councellor was essentially a meet'n'greet. Trying to feel each other out. She wants me to do 3 things before our next meeting Thursday: get more sleep, schedule a depression/anxiety screening (I made it for Monday), and keep a more frequent journal of my feelings. In that journal I have to write the situation, grade my feelings on the situation, and what I did about it. I'm not looking foward to this since I'm always thinking, the wheels are always turning.
I understand that this is an extremely long post, but you guys should know what's happening. What bothers me the most is all people know about what happened was "I talked back to Chief." Many of those who I've talked to about it really don't know "the whole story." I signed a release to the councellor saying that my chain of command is granted access to what is discussed at my meetings. I figure the more they know about I am the better, and the councellor can be a good translator for what I'm unable to say about myself. This wraps up why my Friday was so bad, especially if you got a facebook post from me suggesting something bad happened.
The swim season is over. Our banquet was also on Friday. I was delegated the chief speaker. Why I don't know since it was made clear to the other coaches I'm not very good at talking to people. Also I am officially the head coach of the larger swim team of the two that attended. Overall I got good reviews though which was good. Next on the volunteer docket is soccer. I'll be the head coach of one of the 7-8 year old teams. The head coach for the other team? You guessed it, Chief Bennett. I haven't played soccer since I was 7 or 8, but how hard could it be? I look back to what I had to do, and I think I can repeat it. More to come on this later.
I officially get my car on Tuesday. I'm pretty jazzed up about that. Not much else to say about that.
Also, I'm now a certified SCUBA diver. In the basic course I got I'm certified to dive up to 60 feet. Today when we went out I got a little too much sea water in my mouth and eyes to enjoy myself, and my mask was a little too tight. Saturday was really fun though. It is something I'll be doing more later down the road. The guy in blue beneath this is Dr. Margraf, the Lieutentant I work out with in the mornings. He doesn't like being here about as much as I do, and diving is one of his releases. He has already told me that him and I will go out if only to get away from the stresses working at the clinic bring.
This post must come to an end. I've decided that I want to put a more honest effort into my EMT class, and I went out and got a haircut today. I also ironed my uniform. Chief stroked my ego hard enough to let me find the motivation needed to pass the class. I also need to shine my boots, and study tonight before I get up for PT with Dr. Margraf. This past week was a week where all things came to a head. Not everything is resolved, but a lot of things are brought to light about me to those responsible for leading me, and I'm thankful for that. My spirit was hurt on Friday, but it was not destroyed. I'm taking what happened as a learning experience and moving on with it.
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