This morning I had planned on texting my squad leader, but totally forgot. I was in a rush to get ready and leave to the naval base in Bremerton. I didn’t remember my squad leader until I was already at my desk and by then it’s a little too late…morning formation is already over. I did my usual morning routine and checked my army and navy emails. When I checked my medboard status on AKO it was still messed up showing 0 days remaining and the final date as unknown. It has been like this for about a week. I was going to wait until Friday to email my PEBLO, but decided to do it today instead. I sent her an email letting her know what I’m seeing when I log into AKO and asked her if she had any idea why it’s been like that for a week.
I then continued to surf the web for a while. I decided to check my army email and to my surprise my PEBLO had responded to my email. She said she is expecting my ratings today or tomorrow! I was a little in shock, it seems I’ve been waiting for so long…now it’s about to happen. I was a little nervous as well wondering what my ratings were going to be. Of course I wasn’t pinning all my hopes that I would see my ratings today or tomorrow, I’ll believe it when I see it.
I surfed the web more, browsing the news while periodically checking my army email to see if there was any response. I ate lunch at my desk and continued to surf the web. I then received a call from my PEBLO saying she had my ratings. She didn’t tell them to me over the phone, but said she would email them to me. At this point I’m still surfing the web, but checking my army email every minute or so!
Finally I received the email, my heart was pounding a bit as I opened each attachment to find out what my ratings were. I ended up getting 40% from the army and 50% from the VA. I’m still not sure what all that means, I am meeting with my PEBLO on Friday to get all the answers.
Here’s the breakdown of my ratings:
The army:
Tension Headaches: 30%
Degenerative Disc Disease of the Cervical Spine: 10%
The VA:
Tension Headaches: 30%
Cervical Spine Degenerative Disc Disease: 10%
Right Knee Strain (Osgood Schlatters Disease): 10%
Tinnitus: 10%
Hearing Loss: 0%
Left Shoulder Injury: 0%
The funny way they do math takes the total of 60% from the VA and rounds it to 50%.
Now I started surfing the web to make sense of all this. I found out a lot of stuff, but some was conflicting. What I gathered is that I’ll be medically retired from the army, but will receive pay from the VA (the higher of the two amounts). If what I gathered is correct, I’ll receive a blue (medically retired) military ID. This would be awesome because I would still be able to take advantage of the commissary on any base. That is going to save us some money. I’ll know more I think once I see my PEBLO.
It was hard to do much the rest of the day except think about my future. With my ratings now in, this should be the beginning of the end for my time here at the WTB and in the army. I’ve heard the max time I would have is 90 days, but it could be shorter depending on circumstances.
After work I headed to Costco to pick up another canvas photo we ordered. We decided to get canvas prints made of the various cities and landmarks we have visited around the world. It should be pretty cool once we get them all and put them up in our house. Once home I did my schoolwork, then my wife and I headed to the YMCA. I was in some pain, so instead of the elliptical we just walked around the indoor track at a pretty decent speed. It all worked out pretty well, I didn’t make anything worse, the pain meds started to kick in, and I think I got at least a little bit of a workout.
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