Clearing Battalion - (MedBoard: Joint Base Lewis-McChord) Day 278

On the drive home...the view of the Tacoma Narrows bridges

This morning I went to formation in ACUs because I’m finally clearing. Right after formation my squad had to follow our squad leader to his office. He had quarterly counseling statements for everyone to sign…one of those “check the box” and get it done moments. After that I went back to my car and tried to sleep, but it is just too darn cold outside to get comfortable. I just laid there listening to the radio…slowly freezing. Around 0900 I had breakfast in my car and then decided to start clearing (out-processing) from battalion. The clearing process involves taking my clearing paperwork (in this case just one piece of paper) and having each required place sign off on it and stamp it if they happen to have a stamp.

I decided to start at Madigan hospital. I was able to clear from VA Benefits, Occupational Therapy, and the Provost Marshal. Why some of these are on here I don’t know, most of the time the person behind the desk just takes the paper and signs it, then hands it back without even bothering to even look at my name.

I then drove to the security office. They have specific times available for out-processing and I wanted to make sure to get them out of the way. Once I finished with them, I drove to CIF and signed in at their customer service desk. About a half hour later, I was finally called up. They signed my paperwork and also gave me another piece of stamped paperwork that my company supply office will need to see.

At this point it was lunch time, so I drove off post and had lunch with a friend of mine at Taco Bell. After lunch I drove to the WTB and was able to clear from the following: Social Worker (via the on-call social worker), Billeting, Company training room, Company training records, Transition coordinator, SFAC, and ACAP. I tried to clear from the Mailroom, Veterans Corp, and Supply…but after multiple attempts nobody was there. So I decided to call it a day at 1400 and headed home. I’ll try and get the rest on Monday. Everyone will be training tomorrow because it’s Thursday, and Friday is a training holiday.

When I got home I did schoolwork as usual. I’m looking forward to finishing up class and finally getting my degree. When my wife came home we went to the YMCA and worked out. Finally we headed over to my sister’s house and had our usual Wednesday night family dinner.