Last time I will be using these for quite awhile

"blacktruck18" (blacktruck14)
04/27/2015 at 08:26 • Filed to: None

Today is my last working day in the US Army. I get my discharge papers in a few hours and sign out on 70 days terminal leave tonight at midnight. I am pretty excited.

DISCUSSION (49)

pip bip - choose Corrour > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 08:30

how long did you serve?

With-a-G is back to not having anything written after his username > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 08:33

I don’t want to just give you a bland “thank you for your service,” but I will say that sometime in my 30’s I found Samuel Johnson’s, “Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea,” to ring very true. There is something quite enviable about what you have been through, and I hope that you can turn it into gold in your life.

blacktruck18 > pip bip - choose Corrour
04/27/2015 at 08:35

12 years, 1 month, 13 days as of today. I only know the exact number because it was on some paperwork I had to sign a few days ago.

misfitmascots > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 08:37

Congrats. I just got out the Air Force about 90 days ago, so I know how you feel.

blacktruck18 > With-a-G is back to not having anything written after his username
04/27/2015 at 08:43

I like that quote quite a bit. I am pretty happy with the plans I have made, I am pretty sure everything will go according to plan.

Coty > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 08:47

Thank you.

NotUnlessRoundIsFunny > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 08:50

Well I’m not as well-read as With.a.G, and so will go ahead and say a sincere: thank you for your service.

All the best on your next phase.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 09:01

All the best going forward.

Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 09:02

Dat permanent leave beard.

Congrats man! Any reason you’re not sticking out the last 8?

desertdog5051 > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 09:07

Enjoy your time off. I will tell you that after about 5 days you will wish you had not thrown out the razor. :)

doodon2whls > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 09:35

Congratulations on your Honorable Discharge !

Do you have a job lined up ?

If you are looking for some community engagement with a Veteran focus, check out Team Rubicon... http://www.teamrubiconusa.org/ If nothing else, it will let you maintain some of the camaraderie that you had when you served, and give you an opportunity to continue to lead.

/shameless plug

chiefstinky > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 09:42

Congrats, it may take a little time to adjust, not having to shave is quite the perk. Not having to wear a hat (cover) is weird too. Retired, 23 yrs, USAF.

TillTheWheelsFallOff: Brocoma > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 09:42

Thank you for your service!

505Turbeaux > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 09:49

good luck on your departure, and thank you for all the time you have in serving our country. Have to say I am a little jealous of your lack of shaving though, just starting a new job and I feel I cant pull off the scruff till I settle in a little! Have fun!

blacktruck18 > doodon2whls
04/27/2015 at 10:18

I don’t have a job lined up yet, I am going back to school to finish my degree, then I will be heading out into the real world. I will definitely check out that webiste. Thanks.

blacktruck18 > 505Turbeaux
04/27/2015 at 10:20

Thank you, I am not planning on shaving (or getting a haircut) until I finish school and start looking for a job. I am not sure if I can stick to that though. I might get tired of being hairy.

blacktruck18 > chiefstinky
04/27/2015 at 10:22

I am not looking forward to adjusting, everyone I know that got out said it takes quite a while to get used to being a civilian. Thanks for your 23 yrs.

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 10:23

Kinja'd!!!

And these guys, all giving you shit for getting out and not being a lifer in one sentence, making fun of the other guy who reenlisted again at the same time.

Kinja'd!!!

blacktruck18 > NotUnlessRoundIsFunny
04/27/2015 at 10:23

Thank you, hopefully everything goes according to plan.

blacktruck18 > desertdog5051
04/27/2015 at 10:24

I am thinking I might get tired of it but for right now, I am not planning on shaving or getting a hair cut until I am done with school.

blacktruck18 > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
04/27/2015 at 10:24

Thank you, hopefully everything goes according to plan.

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 10:25

http://www.duffelblog.com/2014/09/first-…

505Turbeaux > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 10:26

meh it will feel good for a while at least! Let it all hang down!

doodon2whls > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 10:27

Outstanding! More Kudos to you for completing your degree! The GI Bill is an awesome benefit, so hopefully you are taking advantage of that.

What are you studying, if you don’t mind my asking?

My military job (USAF 2W0X1) didn’t exactly set me up for a great civilian career, so I headed off to school and studied engineering.

blacktruck18 > Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole
04/27/2015 at 10:41

The reason I am not doing the last 8 is medical.

I had some extra bone growth/arthritis on the ball of both of my femurs. I let an Army doc try to fix the right side but they shaved out to much bone. Between the bad surgery and having no cartilage left in the socket where my femur goes into my pelvis (from the extra bone ripping it apart) my hip was randomly dislocating. I had a second surgery to try and fix the mess up and repair some muscles that got torn when my hip dislocated (about 7 times in 6 months).

The 2nd surgery made it quite a bit better but I can still dislocate my hip if I move abnormally, I can walk and do normal day to day stuff but Army stuff is out of the question. If I had fought it I probably could have stayed in but, I don’t want to be a liability to others if I ever deploy again. Also, if I were to deploy again I would probably end up with some desk job, Fuck every bit of that.

blacktruck18 > doodon2whls
04/27/2015 at 10:48

I am going to study Supply Chain Management. I was a truck driver in the Army but I never really drove trucks, I pretty much only did Convoy Security and Personal Security stuff.

I have no desire to drive a truck as civilian. There’s nothing wrong with it I just don’t want to do it. The security stuff I have done I could translate into a private military job pretty easily but again, it isn’t something I want to do.

blacktruck18 > R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet
04/27/2015 at 10:52

I love Duffleblog, you read the stories and they sound ridiculous, then you remember when you were that exact situation.

blacktruck18 > R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet
04/27/2015 at 10:55

I have been laughing it up every time someone talks shit about getting out. It’s usually the assholes who are garbage that talk the most shit. I haven’t really been getting too much shit though, everyone who knows me knows it is medical.

desertdog5051 > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 11:01

Enjoy.

Hey, y'all, watch this! > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 11:09

Frickin’ Army docs, man.

blacktruck18 > Hey, y'all, watch this!
04/27/2015 at 11:29

I haven’t really needed to go to the Doc’s too much while I have been in but, aside from this I have always had good experiences. That being said, the only way the 1st surgery could have gone worse was if they cut my leg off or I died from the anesthesia.

Looking back on it, I should not have even had the surgery. The pain I was in before hand wasn’t that bad. I could have just dealt with it, the surgery sounded pretty simple and I thought it would work out perfectly. Oh well, lesson learned.

Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 11:56

PLEASE tell me they MEB’d you and retired you.

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 12:06

What you could do with that is start looking at doing warehouse design, and control software implementation.

Which is what I actually do.

Hey, y'all, watch this! > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 14:24

I had a shoulder surgery (with a bonus punctured lung that they weren’t going to mention until I demanded to know why they were taking a CAT scan of my chest), then they cleared me to deploy a couple of months after that. When I came back not quite a year later with a partially paralyzed arm, they were like, oh, yeah, you totally shouldn’t have deployed that soon. Sucks to be you.

blacktruck18 > Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole
04/27/2015 at 14:43

Yes, they did. Got taken care of pretty well.

blacktruck18 > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs
04/27/2015 at 14:44

Nice, I think warehouse design would be cool. Get to stretch out the old brain a little.

blacktruck18 > Hey, y'all, watch this!
04/27/2015 at 14:50

Goddam, was the punctured lung related to the surgery at all? Before my first deployment in 2007 one of my buddy’s who broke his leg and was one with a cast on his leg gor cleared to deploy. We were like WTF, he can’t walk on his own how can he deploy.

My last deployment in 2011 we had a dude not get cleared for an ingrown toe nail. I have no idea how any of it works but, it doesn’t seem to make sense.

Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 15:21

Good. I’m in the process of a PDBR right now. I got boarded at 20% but I think they screwed up and didn’t rate me bi-laterally. If the board agrees with me, I’ll get a blue card as well.

Hey, y'all, watch this! > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 15:26

The surgeon is the one who punctured it!

Meanwhile, we had a guy on that same deployment not go because he had a shoulder injury that was bad enough to put him out of the Army, but not bad enough to stop him going downrange as a contractor immediately after getting out. (And this is back when contractors were making the big bucks.)

blacktruck18 > Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole
04/27/2015 at 15:29

Nice, I hope it works out for you. Do you have your original 1099 (?) with the listing of what they rated you for? It should have listed everything, if your stuff was bilateral it should have listed something like Aliment 1: right knee blah blah blah Ailment 2: left knee blah blah blah.

At least that’s how mine looks.

Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 15:31

I’ve got it buried somewhere. But yeah, it didn’t say that. 2 issues were on it, but both issues happened in both legs/feet separately. It’s a cluster, but it’s worth a shot to see if they’ll retire me 8 years after the fact.

blacktruck18 > Hey, y'all, watch this!
04/27/2015 at 15:32

Wow, that’s awesome. Ya, fuck that Doc.

What was the guy doing as a contractor? In all honesty depending on what he was doing I could see it working.

blacktruck18 > Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole
04/27/2015 at 15:33

Oh ya, definitely worth it if they retire you.

blacktruck18 > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs
04/27/2015 at 18:32

I actually want to get into warehouse design. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to study Architecture or Supply Chain Management, then I found out about Warehouse design and it seemed like a good mix of both.

How do you like it? What exactly do you do on regular basis? If you don’t mind. Thanks.

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > blacktruck18
04/27/2015 at 18:49

We work with clients to do process engineering to design the flow of their distribution centers.

Generally, they come to us with a problem (want to reduce labor costs, or something), and we look at their existing flow, and we find a way to optimize the process. Since we also sell the control software, we also configure the software to use the warehouse in the most optimal manner.

Companies in this space tend to have different products that do different things. For example, we have an order management system that interfaces with the warehouse management system, and a transportation suite.

There’s some travel involved, but that can be a plus for some people.

blacktruck18 > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs
04/27/2015 at 21:55

Thank you. That sounds like a good time. I realize some travel will be part of the job with warehouse design I don’t think it will be an issue. As long as all of my trips aren’t with the “Let’s go to Hooters and get smashed!!!” guy I should be okay.

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > blacktruck18
04/28/2015 at 11:03

You just have to find the “Let’s go to Shiro’s Sushi” guy when you are in Seattle.

blacktruck18 > KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs
04/28/2015 at 12:18

mmmmmmmm.... Shiro’s Sushi. Yup going to Seattle this week.

KusabiSensei - Captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs > blacktruck18
04/28/2015 at 13:23

This is the only possible answer.