Apparently I Can Be Trusted

Thursday 30 July, 2008
2100

Today I got the official notice that my permanent security clearance has been approved. I checked my personnel record online, and sure enough there it was, with an official date of 15 July 2008. I’m surprised it only took them 15 days to notify me. I pretty much expected them to put a physical letter on a slow boat to China, and maybe get it before the end of my next tour. But I actually got an email informing me of the decision.

The process is so opaque, and they are so backlogged, that I absolutely did not expect a decision this quickly. I never doubted that the approval would come eventually – it was just a question of how long it would take and how much BS I would have to go through before they made the decision. But regardless of how confident I was that it would come through in the end, it’s still a relief to know that the process is complete and I now have a clearance that will be good until I retire.

So it turns out that the whole exercise of extending for another tour was unnecessary, and I could be on my way home for good instead of just going on leave before coming back for another year. But hindsight is 20:20, and there was no way to know that at the time the decision had to be made. Now I’m way past the point of no return. And just a couple of days ago I got a recruiting email advertising a Senior ROTC instructor position at Montana State University in Bozeman....*sigh*.

Fortunately they agreed to let me take 45 days of leave, so I’ll get to be home to see my two oldest kids off to college and see my younger daughter play in her high school marching band at the first couple of football games. That’s priceless.

Right now I’m re-packing my stuff, trying to arrange my footlockers to weigh less than 70 lb. so they can be mailed. I did a rough calculation and decided that postage was cheaper than buying new “household” things, so I disassembled the shelves I had bought here and am sending them along with various other housekeeping stuff.

Mood: OK
Music: ZZ Top: Can’t Stop Rockin’