Life in the Army while you are on Medical Hold.

Life on Medical Hold is awkward at best. For me, it resulted in my being permanently grounded from pilot duties, and since seventy percent of my unit was forward deployed in Hungary, I was now part of what is known in Army vernacular: The Rear-Detachment (RD). In almost every scenario, when a unit is deployed temporarily from their home base, a small portion of the unit stay behind to maintain the unit area and to perform some functions that can’t be done in the forward area. This is known as the Rear-Detachment. Size and personnel and equipment allotted varies based on the unit needs. One common theme in all scenarios it that personnel in-processing, out-processing and on Medical Hold are part of the RD.

I was on hold pending the results of my medical board. When injured on active-duty, if you were injured enough to qualify for a disability discharge or disability retirement, you were referred to a medical review board. My medical review board (and all medical reviews from the European Theatre) was based at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Bethesda, Maryland. While my board was pending, I was on hold from all administrative processes, including my being discharged due to my second non-selection for promotion to Chief Warrant Officer three (CW3). It also meant that I couldn’t return to Hungary.

A grounded pilot is about as useless as “Tits on a Boar Hog” as my grandfather used to say. This outstanding, I was the company Automation Officer who kept all the computers going. The Battalion Intelligence Officer (S2) was overwhelmed with computer repair work and I asked my company commander if I could go an assist him. I pointed out that over fifty percent of the assets that the S2 was trying to fix belonged to our company and he agreed to load me full time to the S2. So, I became the battalion computer tech.

This was also Spring of 1997. Everyone in the United States knows that April 15^th is in the Spring and that US income taxes are due. For those that didn’t know, US soldiers, while deployed overseas, are still subject to US income taxes. (There are exceptions when deployed to war zones and such, but in general, you are still a US citizen and you are still subject to the tax code.) One of the things I had done since my time at Fort Campbell on Degree Completion, was I was an Internal Revenue Service Volunteer Income Tax Assistant (VITA) volunteer. From 1993 through 1997 I volunteered to assist with soldiers and their dependents to help them file their income tax returns. The Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps (ARMY for LAWYER) setup tax preparation centers and there was one in front of the Post Exchange at Leighton Barracks where I was housed. Not having a lot to do, I did a lot of volunteer tax work.

This is where I met our Battalion Executive Officer (XO), I did his taxes. Apparently, I also impressed him. And when he found out that I was essentially working for him (the XO was the Chief of Staff for the Battalion Commander) assisting his S2, he found more for me to do as the new assistant Personnel Officer (S1) for the battalion. While working on his taxes, he observed that I knew computers and I was pretty well versed in communication. The S1 had a problem where Officer Evaluation Reports (OERs) were being submitted by raters or senior raters that really couldn’t write well. As I mentioned before, I’d been prompted by my English Professors in degree completion to change my major to English, and I was now tasked to put that knowledge to work for the battalion.

I went from being useless, to really busy in short order. I helped e-file taxes for the entire battalion staff and many others in the unit, plus a couple hundred at the VITA office after working hours, fixed a lot of computers and was the battalion proof reader and ghost writer for OERs from January to May of 1997. I also spent a lot of time using the Army Transition Center computer assets trying to set myself up for a post Army job. I kept all this up while waiting for Walter Reed to get around to processing me and my discharge from the Army.

While working in these positions, I also came into closer contact with CW3 Dave Pasch. Dave was the unit Safety Officer, and like me he had been passed over for his promotion to CW4. Dave was considering his options and since I was also in the same situation, we talked a lot. Dave’s situation was better though because he would have fifteen years active duty prior to separation. I assisted him in getting his early retirement packet submitted and he out processed and retired in May 1997. About the time Dave was clearing I got my board results. I was finally informed that I was being given a disability rating of thirty percent which qualified me for the Temporary Disability Retirement List (TDRL).

I’d done it! I was going to get to retire and move on to civilian life. When I’d entered active duty from the National Guard in 1984, the plan had been put in my twenty years and get my retirement. Reduction in Force (RIF) and an unfortunately timed early promotion to CW2 had put me in a position of having been passed over the second time with only fourteen years active duty. Leaving short of the fifteen-year early retirement threshold. The TDRL assignment gave me the opportunity to retire on disability from the army, and all the benefits associated with retirement. While Post Exchange (PX) and Commissary (Military Grocery) privileges are nice, the important part to me was continuation of medical insurance and availability of post medical services for myself and my family.

I started out-processing in July of 1997 with a separation date of August 1, 1997. Separating from the military from an overseas tour also provided another quandary; Where do we go from here? I grew up in Indiana and my wife in Kentucky. Neither state held great ties to us as my immediate family now lived in Tennessee and I had left the area due to the inability to get work there anyway. We decided to go to Tennessee as that was the state that our kids had the strongest ties to and my sons wanted to attend the University of Tennessee after high school. My brother and mother living in Franklin, Tennessee was just icing on the cake. I told the army to send us to Tennessee.

Our return flight to Tennessee didn’t exactly go smoothly, as well there were “Problems.” On July 31, 1997, FedEx Express Flight 14 was a scheduled cargo flight from Singapore to Newark, New Jersey. The aircraft flying this route crashed during landing on its final segment at Newark International Airport, catching fire as it flipped upside down, while attempting to land on runway 22R (The right of two parallel runways aligned to magnetic heading 220.) Our route home was Frankfort to Newark, NJ, Newark to Louisville, KY to visit my Step-Mother and Father before making the final trip to Tennessee to live. That MD11 crash occurred while we were over the Atlantic.

Nothing had been unusual until we go near the coast of the USA and our captain announced that there would be a delay in landing due to traffic and that we would be holding west of Newark for about forty-five minutes while Air Traffic Control (ATC) got things figured out. If you are any kind of experienced flier and you have flown to the northeast part of the US, you know that air traffic issues are not that unusual and we had a long layover so we were not too concerned. Finally, the captain announced we were clears to land and made his approach to Runway 22L. As usual, as we touched down, the passengers all started applauding the crew for a job well done. That quickly turned to silence as we taxied past the smoldering remains of the crashed MD11 on the adjacent runway. Freaked out was an understatement for all of us.

We arrived at the terminal, and processed through customs and then joined the chaos of trying to get out of Newark. Between the in-route delay and near total chaos of the airport due to the crash, we were unable to make our connecting flight. My wife, my three kids and I joined the queue at the TWA ticket counter trying to get tickets to Louisville. As you can imagine, tickets were in short supply and the frazzled ticket agents were being creative in getting people to their destinations. Here came our next quandary. I could get seats for five on a flight to Cleveland, OH, but from Cleveland, I was only assured of two seats to Louisville, KY. Exhausted from twelve hours of travel so far, I reluctantly accepted this offer and got tickets and boarding passes.

We had a while between flights and we were afforded the opportunity by TWA to visit with our two cats that were flying cargo back to the US with us. We were glad to see they were doing well and reluctantly saw them off with the baggage handlers came to load them on the plane to Cleveland. The flight to Cleveland was uneventful, the scene at the TWA ticket counter, not so much. Since I knew I was going to have to get reticketed, I looked for the gate information for the Louisville flight and told my family to meet me there as I sprinted ahead. It seems like negotiations with the TWA agent took an eternity but it was likely only a few minutes and we managed to get the last five seats on the flight to Louisville on a CRJ-200 commuter jet.

Where are the cats? This was now the big question. Since we had no confirmed transfer, our biggest concern now was the cats. These cats were family, one we’d had since Alaska twelve years before, and we were adamant that we would not board the plane unless the cats were on it too. We were prepared to give up the seats and get a hotel if we had to, but we weren’t leaving the cats alone in a strange city after what we’d just gone through. Finally, the gate agent was able to confirm the cats were in the baggage heading to the plane and we boarded. Just as I was entering the plane, I saw them being brought to the plane though the window of the jetway. Soon we were wheels up again and landed in Louisville, KY about an hour later.