Thursday, May 23, 2013

Prayer Breakfast - (Germany) Day 512

The chaplain up front doing his thing at the prayer breakfast in Landstuhl

This morning was an early one. I headed over to the chaplain's house by 0430 in the morning. I had told him earlier that even though I would be clearing, that I would help him out with this last prayer breakfast. We drove up to Landstuhl which is about an hour away. On our drive there the chaplain asked me to pull over at the next rest area…a minute later he said take the next exit and just pull over! He had to go pee and it was an emergency. So I pull over and the chaplain takes a few steps off the road and relieves himself…lol. We get back on the road and arrive at our destination then headed to the 181 company conference room. Eventually the 102nd Signal Battalion chaplain and CSM arrived as well. This will be the chaplain that takes over once our 43rd Signal Battalion chaplain leaves and the 43rd Signal Battalion shuts down.

The breakfast spread was pretty amazing because of one particular female specialist from 181 in Landstuhl. She brought in all kinds of stuff to eat including breakfast burritos and some type of egg dish. There were some pastries as well and of course coffee and juice. I stayed in the back most of the time taking photos for the chaplain and helping out whenever needed.

After we finished the breakfast we headed out, I was able to grab a muffin and scarf it down before we left…not quite the breakfast I imagined, but at least it was something. On the way back the chaplain wanted to stop in Mannheim at one of the posts to ask some questions about his car. He's looking to sell it before he leaves and needed to find out some information. We ship all our cars from this post in Mannheim, so I'll be making a trip there in the near future. The chaplain wanted to get his car washed and inspected (the inspection is a requirement in order to sell). He was going to have me stay with him all day, but I let him know I still needed to continue to out-process. So he took me back home and then headed back to Mannheim. Because it was close to lunch time by now, I decided to eat some lunch and take a nap. I then downloaded all the prayer breakfast pictures I took and emailed them to my work address so I could forward them to the chaplain later on.

I headed into the out-processing center and finished up my last remaining office there which happened to be the passport office. I'm not sure why we have to out-process there. I sat down handed him my clearing paper, he signed it and I took off. I then headed to the ComSec office where I sent the prayer breakfast photos to the chaplain and also uploaded them to the 181 Facebook page. I call it a page, but it's really a closed group. I checked my email, talked with my boss for a bit…then headed out. I was able to find the S-4 NCO and he signed most of my paperwork, but needed some confirmation from our company headquarters that I don't have any gear checked out. So I had to go back to the ComSec office and send an email requesting this. I think there will be a lot of this type of stuff as I'm trying to tie up all the loose ends.

I headed to the hospital to knock out the clearing paperwork there. The problem is that with the closing of the post, everything is consolidating and nothing is where it should be. Some offices on my clearing paperwork state they are on the 4th floor of the hospital, but they have removed everything from the fourth floor! I ended up on the 2nd floor looking for a behavior health office, when I walked in there was no receptionist. Shrek was playing in the waiting room, but there was nobody there…it was like an abandoned clinic. I wandered around the hallways peering into empty offices and passing by some offices that stated "In Session". Finally a gentleman came out of an office and I asked him if he could out-process me. He said the CPT that usually does that is gone…then gently knocked on an office door that was "in session". The lady who answered told the gentleman to sign my paperwork if I had never been to behavior health before…I told him I hadn't, he signed it.

I then headed to the first floor to the family practice center is. The receptionist there took my paperwork and signed off on everything else except one office called social welfare or something. She told me it was upstairs. I headed back up to the place I just came from and after seeing nobody there, decided to sit down and watch Shrek for a while. A CPT came in who was also out-processing. I told her that everyone was in their offices with "in session" signs on their doors…and the rest where empty. She said she actually works in the hospital and since they signed my behavior health already, she would just sign my social welfare. I don't really see the point of having to do all this out-processing. I never had to show an ID card. The people never looked anything up in a computer or any records, they all just took my paperwork and signed it. It's just a big waste of time!

I headed home and took a nap…getting up so early left me drained. 

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