Military Nesties
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
dream sheets
Dream sheets give me anxiety. Although I think if I was honest with myself I would say they are just the icing on my anxious cake this month. Back to reality: there really is no point to them, is there? The military (AF in this case) knows where they need you and that's that. Can anyone give me any hope of our preference making any real difference?
Re: dream sheets
H got our number 3 pick so I wouldn't say they're pointless.
ETA: H is AF
They don't give a rat's hind end what your dream sheet says until you are at a certain rank. What they look at now is if you think you want to go over seas. If you put down an overseas base, chances are higher that you'll get one but not a guaruntee.
As long as I've known my DH, he's always been told where to go. Well, this last move, he was given a list, but a COL he had worked for in the past saw he was available and called him up. Kind of difficult to say no, so here we are. Thankfully it's a cool place! I was not pleased with four out of the six locations on the list. Guess I shouldn't make it sound like I'm complaining.
FWIW, my DH is an Army O, but he was told where to go when he was enlisted, too.
That sounds like a first class ticket to bumfucknowhere.
Pretty much.
What DOES matter is the needs of the military, whatever branch that may be.
ETA: H got his last pick out of tech school. We are still here. He played the equals listing and lined his dream sheet up with mostly what was on the EQUALS for his job/rank. We got that 4th pick on that, and then it was taken away and now he is going to Korea for a year. We are still waiting to hear if he gets anything off of what he requested as a follow on to Korea. So much anxiety in the waiting!
You came to my wedding, so you know my H. He has gotten his first pick once and his absolute last pick (Okinawa) once (for his 4 years). And the time he got his first pick (this time) was kind of a given because they had barely any slots available on the East Coast, and zero slots in Okinawa.
The most beautiful place on earth to me: Glacier NP
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="D
In the 9 years I was AD (AF), I never ended up at a base on our dream sheet. Same with H.
Also, it helps to have a proactive commander who will place calls for you, talk to AFPC (or your branch analogy), try to get you a good match.
Networking matters. H once got a by name request (although that fell through for bizarre reasons that don't apply to most people). He's always networking in the hopes of a future one.
If you know you're in a situation where a bad tour is bound to come up, try to game it. Look for the best of the worst spots. Again, that's part of h's request for Korea as he knew a 365 was likely to be upcoming.
Thanks for your encouraging words and advice. I just get frustrated sometimes because there are so many pieces of information and advice floating around that it can feel like there is no point at trying to figure it out sometimes.
I just try to remind myself that our marriage is what matters- not the location. And yes, AFPC is the right acronym for me, too. : )
It's like honeybadger said though. If the Navy needs you in either Hawaii or Diego Garcia there's no sense in asking for San Diego or Florida. You ask for Hawaii and then you cross your fingers and toes, get down on your knees and pray.
67/200
j&sr, I don't remember your backstory (nor anyone else, here, to be honest) but you're new to this, right?
I won't scare you with tales of how we were jerked around the year when we found out H would not fly again. That was shittiness to the degree that long term AF friends found appalling. If anyone's been screwed, we have. Repeatedly.
Yes, there IS an element of giving up a semblance of control.
However, I just also think if you're smart about it you can still have a say in where you're going. Admittedly, I don't know anything about enlisted assignments, but I think you said your H was a new O? Fair or not, it seems to be a different world wrt assignments.
Very true. For my H though, putting nothing would be a sure ticket to Alaska. I'd rather him take chances on filling a need somewhere else.
Yep I'm new to the military life and the board. My husband is a relatively new O, you're also right about that. This is our first official attempt at a dream sheet and based on what I had heard and comparing other peoples dream sheets ahead of him to what their drop was etc. I just got super frustrated with the whole point of it.
We were never going to not fill it out I just wasn't sure if there was any logic to it or not. We attempted to figure out general areas we would like to be in and narrow it down to states. We also tried to look at those areas and determine which states had the most base options and greatest likelihood of then being stationed at one of them. Those were the kinds of things we were trying.
I am SO sorry to hear about you guys getting screwed over! That is awful! Maybe you're right: it might be best right now not to scare me with details
But either way I'm sorry to hear that. It's all about being flexible, adapting, and making the best with what we're given, right? Tell me I'm not fooling myself! haha
Usually E-6ish, in my expirience. It is usually around the second re-enlistment. You can go to a career counselor to see where slots are opening and put in for them. It really depends a lot on your job and still on the needs of your branch. One of my very good friends is up for a PCS, she went in ahead of time and said she'd really be interested in bases A, B and C. Because of that, they sat down with her to see what was coming open and put a request in. She got base A. I've seen it happen pretty often, especially if you are asking for a base most people don't ask for.