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.

MedBoard Starts Here - (MedBoard Joint Base Lewis-McChord) Day 1

 Madigan Army Medical Center on Joint Base Lewis- McChord

A place I'll be spending a lot of time at.

So I am now in the process of getting a MedBoard. Here is a little timeline of how I ended up here:

2011: I notice I'm getting frequent headaches, but can't figure out why. Try to do research online for cures to my symptoms such as drinking more water and reducing sugar intake. Nothing helps.

2012 (Spring): I finally go to the doctor to see if they can find out why I'm getting headaches all the time. X-Rays, CT scan, Physical Therapy are all done. No medications so far have helped.

2012 (Fall): Finally referred to a Neurologist who schedules an MRI and also tries a nerve block by injecting a substance in the back of my head near the top of my spine.

2013 (February): My Neurologist gives me a permanent profile after nothing so far has helped. This permanent profile triggers the MedBoard process. I am contacted by the WTU (Warrior Transition Unit) in Heidelberg to start the process. I put in for Ft. Lewis since it is close to my hometown and end up getting orders to head there. My original orders had me arriving on July 10th, but they moved it up to June 9th because of the closure of Heidelberg.

I'm very glad we chose to stay in Frankfurt for our last weekend. It was nice to be away from anything army, and my wife and I had some quality time just hanging out together. We really enjoyed our last weekend in Germany. The flight was straight through from Frankfurt to Seattle…10 hours on a plane. I have no complaints about the plane or the service from our Lufthansa flight crew. We were served either meals, drinks, or snacks several times throughout the flight. I had enough legroom and we had our own in flight entertainment system. I ended up watching "The Last Stand" and "A Good Day to Die Hard". Those along with music and podcasts on my iPhone helped pass the time.

We arrived in SeaTac and after making our way through customs, there was an NCO at the baggage terminal waiting for us. She gave us a ride to Ft. Lewis (actually it's now called JBLM - Joint Base Lewis McChord, but this is mainly just in name only…they are still basically two physically separate bases). She drove us around and showed me the hospital and the WTB barracks and offices right next to it. There was a lot of police tape in the parking lot with MPs standing around. I later found out that a WTB soldier had just killed himself! We then checked into our hotel where my wife and I were picked up by a friend shortly after.

Our friend took us to surprise both of our families. Nobody knew we were coming back earlier (everyone still thought the date was in July). So big surprises everywhere and lots of visiting with both sides of our family. We were able to borrow my father-in-law's car and took that back to our hotel on base, where we promptly passed out…it's been the longest Sunday ever!