SFC Rodriguez talks to me. He says I got up and pissed and Roberson stopped me. I pissed, got back. I thought then I could never win this case. Here is the man that saw everything else how everyone else saw it, how could he be wrong about this, which, to him, only happened few minutes later? SSG Mathes says he never saw me get up. Roberson says the same.
It got ridiculous. It got to a point where I had become my own lawyer. I was actually preparing questions and answers and rebuttals and possible answers and questions to rebuttals and even possible objections and how I’m going to defend from that objection. It was too much for myself. I had support from almost everyone I knew of, but morale support can only go so far. I had to drop the case from the court martial. I didn’t even my own family’s support and I was stressed out beyond belief.
CPT Eng actually gave me 3 choices. Either 1) 10 days extra duty, 2 months suspension of demotion, 5 days pay 2) 10 days extra duty, 3 months suspension, 3 days pay, 3) 10 days extra duty, 4 months suspension of demotion, no pay taken away. I go for 3, hoping that LTC Kloster will lesson the verdict.
On the 1st of November, I witness 11 people, 11 specialists, get promoted. Among them were Fitz, Mabugat, and CPL Ontiveros. All of them deserved it. I couldn’t say the same for anyone else, people in 2nd Platoon and such. But they got it. Alfaro, in all her ignorance, gave me the video camera to shoot everyone else get promoted. I mean, here is a 20 year old girl that has the audacity to know that I wasn’t getting promoted to SGT because of my Article and still have me, of all soldiers considered, video tape everyone else in the formation that I should have been in? No one believes she should be receiving the stripes. But I guess the 1SG doesn’t see it the same way.
9th of November, Contreras got promoted along with Gonzales. It’s kind of weird, now, looking at this man with the stripes on his collar. Sometimes I dont’ think he has the intellectual capacity to actually be a leader, nor the ambitions to pursue anything in particular. But I also see this man trying. If anything, he has tried harder than anyone else.
SGT Lodevico let me down often in recent memory. He was against me in the open hearing of my Article 15, and he is still against me in that regard. Yet he wants to please everyone. In one sense, he and SFC Rodriguez are the same. Rodriguez tries so hard to do this. And it’s funny how he likes to talk to women in any regard because he is sexually very active. I remember him telling me that one person told him how he doesn’t understand his wife still stands him. He’s too two faced. One day he’ll tell you one thing, another day he’ll tell you another. He told me he’s gonna try to stay out of it, stay out of my hearing and out of accusing me and such. He repeated himself so often that I thought he was serious. And come hearing, he said everything he needed to say. I have no idea what this man is doing. He needs to appeal to higher authority, I understand, but when it comes to loyalty of people, I don’t think he has one.
Lodevico in memory has been of such. He tried too hard to appeal to everyone, but he seemed like one of us. It was kind of weird how he always laughed the same way about a joke he knew was a joke but probably no one else though was much of a joke. And in that regard I could still hear him converse with the 1SG and laugh at the jokes everyone else knows is not much of anything. I don’t know what his deal is, but he’s let down. He’s still part of the 3rd platoon, he would say, still part of 3rd. But no, I think he’s much closer to the HQ. SGT Lopez, in every regard, has been and will be much more to us than anyone else will ever be in HQ. He’s been one of us and more. I admire his knowledge, his defiance of abuse of authority, and his loyalty.
I hate this. I hate the politics of it all. I can’t believe I’m still an E-4. The other day was my year mark for E-4. I’m no longer even in the secondary zone for promotion. I’m hoping everything goes through quickly come January.
I ended my 10 days extra duty. Actually it was closer to 14 days. The day before it started, I had work, and the first day it did start, I had guard duty the same night, working 24 hours. I worked about 101 hours a week for two weeks with no break in between. Originally, it was 7 to 1900 hours, which I was fine with. Rodriguez came up with the great idea that extra duty is extra duty. So therefore, I should come in my regular work hours, from 7 to 5, and work 5 to 9 for extra duty. What that means, I have no idea. Why I have to do extra 2 hours, I had no idea. But I did point out that my work schedule was originally 8 to 5, so that changed it from 7 to 9 to 8 to 9, so an extra hour. That wasn’t too bad, because then I just went and ate dinner for about an hour and came back. But just being at the post office for such a long time was just draining.
I’m thinking nowdays. I’m thinking I might actually stay here a bit longer. I see all these older people around me and what they’re going through. I feel like I’ve led too much of a sheltered life and that I haven’t seen enough to change myself. I feel that I need to go up there, see what it’s like for myself, and stay there, change myself permanently. I’m thinking about trying to transfer to 4th ID somehow, and get myself into an infantry unit of some sort and have myself go on patrols in Baghdad. I want to do this.