My company was training at Yuma Arizona and we were allowed to have a night of time off before a hike the next day at 5 am. Well, I call my wife and she had miscarried our baby and she was naturally distraught. I told my squad leader and he went to tell gunny. During this time I tried to call my Ssgt but he wouldn’t answer the phone (he was out drinking). Ten minutes later gunny comes out and says “Pack up your stuff, get into civvies and I’ll drive you to the bus station. I already bought a ticket. You’ll be at Pendleton in 6 hours.” He was, by the way, the best gunny my company ever had.
When I got back my wife had to have surgery because of complications. My new 1st Sgt (not Satan, this one was good) told me I was now RBE for the rest of the field op and to take the first week and stay home to help my wife. I was really starting to like my COC.
Then I started having pain of my own in my left eye. It became so bad my wife drove me to the hospital and I had corneal ulcers, or microscopic holes in my eye. They actually told me they don’t know how I didn’t go blind. After the field op was over, the company came back and the Ssgt I tried to call was at the office. The FIRST thing he said, or yelled at me, was “Why the fuck didn’t you call me you dumbass”!! I told him I tried to but he out getting drunk. Instead of asking if my wife is ok, or if my vision has healed (he knew about both by then), he instead made it all about him, and why I should have come to him first, even though I did try. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered to him was him, his rank and how it fit into the situation. So to summarize, I lost a child, nearly went blind in my left eye, and he was more worried about his rank.
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