Running for Nothing

One of the things I hate most about facebook are all of the “like if” posts. Like if you support breast cancer research, Like to fight child abuse, Like if you support our troops. These posts do absolutely nothing except to make people feel better about themselves. You click “like” to stop world hunger and you feel as though you’ve accomplished something, like you’ve done your part to stop world hunger. You havn’t donated money or food or manpower, and you are actually less likely to do any of those things now because you already clicked a “like” button on facebook, but that’s the same as actually helping, right?

Similarly, the military seems to do a lot of “Run for’s”. Run for the Fallen, Run for POW’s, Run for Wounded Warriors. These things make me just as, if not more, angry as the facebook “like if” posts. They accomplish absolutely nothing except to make people feel as though they have done something constructive when in actuality they havn’t done anything. These runs have the potential to do some good, which in a way makes it worse. If donations were collected like a fundraiser (ex: getting 10 or 20 people to pay you 5cents or so for every mile you run) or if they charged a dollar or two to participate then the plethora of military “run for’s” could actually make a difference, they could donate the money to the families of the fallen and the POWs or to the wounded soldiers.

Running for the Fallen

As it is though, these runs do little more than to make people feel as though they have already done their part, so when someone asks them to donate time or money to the Families of the Fallen, for example, they can say no without feeling guilty, because they’ve already done a run for the fallen, they don’t need to donate money as well. You can’t even really use the excuse that the runs are to raise awareness, there is not a person in this country who isn’t aware that when soldiers go to war, they are sometimes injured or killed.

To top it all off, most of the people who participate in these runs are volun-told, they’d rather not be there and are only there because their company made it mandatory. The people that do show up willingingly on their own all seem pretty happy and are usually smiling, which to me seems kind of insulting, if you’re “running for the fallen” shouldn’t it be more solemn? But people tend to see it as an enjoyable social experience, even the volunteers handing out snacks and water are all smiles and “this should be fun’s”.

Am I the only one who feels like this?

(This post was written very quickly and posted soon after because my internet is down and I’m having to use the internet at McDonalds. Please tell me if you see any errors.)

Fort Lee Rainy Days for Kids

If you’re looking for a place for your kids to play on a rainy day, the McDonald’s and Burger King in Hopewell both have play areas, though I think McDonald’s is better. They both have wifi.

McDonald’s Play-place

For older kids, there is the Swaders Sports Park in Prince George, they have mini-golf, a play area, a video game area, a laser tag room and a snack bar.

Swaders Sports Park

For younger kids, there’s the Playroom Tricities in Chester which is full of bouncy castles, dress up costumes, air hockey, play kitchens and giant building blocks. It has wifi and it’s only $6/kid for unlimited play. They have a military discount on Tuesdays and Sundays.

Playroom Tricities

If you want to head a little farther from base, the Children’s Museum of Richmond is worth a visit or two. It’s not the best children’s museum, but it’ll keep them entertained for a few hours. They have stuff for kids from crawlers to 5 or 6 year olds.

 

Children’s Museum

If you’d like to get some shopping done, you can always bribe your younger kids with a trip to the play areas in the various area malls.

Library Time

The library here on base at Fort Lee is very disappointing, it is a small section of the Logistics University library and the children’s section is even smaller, about the size of a large area rug.

Before we PCS’d here we had a wonderful local library, with a whole children’s room and lots of kids programs. The children could play and didn’t have to be quiet the whole time, there was a large variety of books and some kind of children’s program going on almost every day.

The Fort Lee library has just started a once weekly preschool story time and a sort of “get your books and get out” attitude is encouraged. You can tell that the librarians doing story time have very little experience with small children.

Fortunately, after a little research, I have found a great local library! The Hopewell branch of the Appomattox Regional Library is the main branch and it is amazing!

The Hopewell Library

They have a very good selection of adult books and a large children’s section that includes books and a play area. They have a computer area for adults and a separate computer area loaded with age appropriate, educational children’s games. They also have movies, cds, and audio books.

It’s too big for me to fully capture, but the children’s computer area is INSIDE A GIANT SHIP, complete with sails and everything! How cool is that?!

The library has a weekly story time for preschoolers and younger children with a professional librarian whose whole job is to travel to the different branches of the Appomattox Regional Library doing kids programs, she is very friendly and very good at her job.

They also have a program called “Book Buddies” for older children in grades 2-4. The children in this program read to therapy dogs to help build their reading skills and confidence.

They have a lot of other children’s programs too, like Game Day, Summer Reading, Pirate Day, Holiday Parties, etc..

A small section of the library

They have programs for teens, preteens and adults as well, you should check out the library here. This library has definitely turned into one of our favorite places to go while stationed as Fort Lee, and I’ll be sad to leave it.

Another small section

 

How to Get Command Sponsorship OCONUS in the Army

*I am aware that not all soldiers are male, but for the purpose of this post I will be refering to the soldier as He, it’s just easier than typing he/she all of the time. If it offends you for some reason, please feel free to exit the page.*

Before we went through ACS, the overseas briefing, the soldier support center, and various other helpful orginizations, I was panicking about trying to figure out how to go about getting command sponsorship. It seemed so difficult and mysterious and the only things I could find online were vague descriptions and people posting scary stories about waiting 18 months for command sponsorship, so I thought I would share with you, the internet masses, the steps to getting command sponsorship so that no one has to feel the sense of panic that I did when I found out we were PCSing to Korea.

1. Your soldier must have a copy of either his orders or a memorandum proving that he will be going OCONUS. He should be able to get a momorandum at his overseas briefing if he doesn’t already have one.
2. EACH of your family members will need a physical. Your soldier will also need to know your family medical history. Make sure the doctor stamps the physical and that the physical is not over a year old. (UPDATE 10/9/2012: You will also need a TB skin test for everyone in your family who can have it)
3. Your soldier will have to enroll you in CHCS (Composite Health Care System). He will need everyones birth certificates, social security cards and a copy of a photo ID for anyone over 13. I am not positive, but I belive that you must already be enrolled in DEERS for him to enroll you in CHCS.
4. After all of the above is completed (and NOT BEFORE) your soldier will have to make an appointment with the EFMP Coordinator. The Coordinator will look over all of your paperwork and have doctors stamp off on your DA Form 5888, they will then give you Form 5888 to take to the Family Travel Specialist.
5. Your soldier will need to make an appointment with the Family Travel Specialist. He MUST have an appointment. the FTS will help your soldier fill out more paperwork and fax all of his paperwork to the appropriate OCONUS location.

At the same time that you are applying for command sponsorship, make sure that you are applying for your no fee passport, do this as soon as possible because it can take 45-60 days. The things that you will need for a no fee passport are:

• The DS-11 passport application, found here.
• Passport photos. You will need 4 for Korea, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and 2 for everywhere else. Add an extra photo if you need a visa as well. The background of the photo must be white. You must be wearing normal street attire, no hats or sunglasses. No uniforms (including military uniforms), no work clothes, no tshirts, no sports shirts.
• Birth Certificates must be state issued, certified copies (old passports and certificate of naturalizations will work too)
• Anyone over 13 must have their ID card as well as an enlarged front/back copy of their ID card.
• Your soldiers orders or a memorandum.

All of this must be done at least 30 days prior to your soldiers report date.

Working on Getting Command Sponsorship

I dropped my husband off to work today at 0400 and I haven’t stopped moving since.

We are in the process of getting command sponsorship for South Korea and there is so much paperwork to do and so many appointments to make that I’m driving myself to exhaustion every day lately. It doesn’t help that we just had a new baby girl a month ago, so we had to wait on her birth certificate, social security card, etc to come in before we could start most of the process. Today I took my 4-year-old son and 1-month-old daughter to get physicals and vaccines, called various family practices trying desperately to find one that accepted Tricare Standard (finally found one 30 min away and the soonest I can get in is 2 weeks from now) and tried to make an appointment on base to get our passport photos taken but they never answered the phone despite my many calls so I’ll try again tomorrow and if I have to I’ll go in person to make the appointment.

There are some things only my husband can do though, because I don’t have his power of attorney yet. It’s difficult for him to get anything done, however, because he is still in AIT and has to rely on his platoon sergeant to make all of his appointments, and they tend to forget and make the appointment two weeks later, no matter how urgent (which is why I don’t have his PoA yet). So, we’re waiting on him to enroll our daughter in DEERS and then enroll the entire family in CHCS (Composite Health Care System) and hopefully get me his PoA, after which we can move on to the next step in securing Command Sponsorship.

While I’m waiting for him to get his end done, I’m working on our passport application, such as the abovementioned passport photos. I am putting off printing out and filling in a DS-11 passport application for all of us but I need to do that later tonight, and I need to make up a packet with our birth certificates, ID cards, passports applications, photos and a copy of his orders. That’s just for the no fee passport, there’s an entirely different process for getting a regular passport, which we’ll need if we ever want to leave base once we get to Korea.

Of course, in the middle of all of this, the Army has moved my husbands graduation date up from February 2013 to December 2012, so I guess it’s no wonder I’ve been having minor panic attacks.