Eric’s Blog

Yeah, that’s gonna be stuck in my head until Monday. Monday is my LAST day in uniform. I’ll be leaving behind the last 23 years of active duty service in the United States Navy to join the Fleet Reserves. Fleet Reserves is just a fancy way of saying “retired”. Of course, they could recall me in a time of great need, but things would have indeed gone wrong if that were to happen.

Everyone keeps asking me if I’m excited. I think ready is a more apt word for the situation. I’m ready to go; not excited, not reserved, just ready.

The last year has been all about getting ready to leave the Navy. The circumstances that catalyzed my departure are irrelevant and a story for another day. For the last 365 days I have been doing everything to get ready for this Monday. I prepared so thoroughly for this coming Monday that several organizations told me, “you have plenty of time”. I’ve never retired from the military before, so I made every effort to be prepared as best I could.

There were several other retirees going through the process at the same time that I was who didn’t prepare as well as I did. I shared information with them when it was appropriate, but I was surprised that they didn’t make as much of an effort as I had. I’m not talking trash about these other people, I’m one of those people who has to know everything about a process before I take the proverbial plunge. Not everyone is like me, I get that. It is just difficult for me to understand why someone wouldn’t want to know everything, take every opportunity, and make every effort for a process that only happens once.

I’m not stressed out about the process. Conversely, I’m quite calm and content with everything that had to happen to get to this moment. It’s quite unusual for me; my particular personality tends to stress every little thing. As I stated earlier, I am ready.

The Navy allows its members transitioning to Fleet Reserves up to two years to prepare for the transition. One year is almost too long. For example, I called TRICARE the other day because their website says a retiring service member can signup for health insurance within 90 days of retirement. I calculated that day as July 5th which was a holiday, so I called on the 6th. The customer service representative said I couldn’t sign up until after my retirement date. I said, “that’s not what your website says”, but I let it go. I’ll call back after my retirement date which isn’t until October 1st.

This is truly a government operation. My 23rd anniversary in the Navy is actually September 24th, but you cannot retire in the middle of the month, it has to be the last day of the month so I had to extend my service in the Navy. Extending for a week is an impossibility for the bureaucracy that is our government, so I had to extend for a month. Don’t worry though, I already had a Fleet Reserve date of October 1st, so that one month extension was really only for a week.

There will be more stories to tell about the process and the thoughts, feelings, opinions, and ideas that I have as I continue the final countdown until Monday. Until then, enjoy your burrito!