I never meant to do 20 years in the Army. To me it was just a way to get out of the life I was currently living at the time. 2 daughters and a wife living in a trailer that you had to take one giant step once you walked in the front door to avoid falling through the floor.

I had a great work ethic and the desire to not fail but as a punk kid with a GED and a clunker for a car and little to no family support, I had the deck stacked against me. Then my good friend enlisted, and it got my wheels turning. Ultimately, I sat down and started going over the pros and cons.

Over the course of a weekend, I knew what I had to do. Not for me but for those 2 little girls and wife that I had sworn to support. 3 weeks later I was shipping off to my basic training. I was not offered many jobs due to me having a GED, but I knew if I was going to do this, I was not going to join to be a grunt. I wanted a skill. Something I could use outside the Army.

Do my 4 years and take the skills and training and turn it into a job outside the Army. This was the plan at least. I decided the best job for me was one that even the career counselor had little knowledge of Special Electronic Device Repairer.

Sounded cool to me! I can do that! And the school was 6 months long. It must be pretty in depth, right? Not only that, between basic and AIT I’ll be done with 1 of the 4 years of my contract. This all makes so much sense to me. Off I go. PV2 Barr reporting for basic training as a 21-year-old Army brat. I felt I knew exactly what I was getting into and knew it was just a game. I played it well. Don’t be the top, don’t be the bottom, fall into that middle grey area and off the Drill sergeant’s radar. The biggest compliment I received at graduation time for basic was “Who the F*%$ is Private Barr?”, nailed it!

Fort Gordon Georgia was my next stop where I spent the next 6-7 months learning that the job, I signed up for is not something I will ever really be learning in this school and that all we are doing is basically checking the boxes to call the dozens of us in the class “MOS qualified”. As graduation time creeped up, we began to receive orders for where we would be going for our first duty station. The year is 2005 at this point and the country is fighting 2 wars and guess who they like to send to the battlefield? Yup. Privates!

Fort Campbell Kentucky. 101st Airborne Division, home of Air Assault. Lucky me I get assigned to 3rd Brigade. Rakassans. They are due to set off to Iraq within weeks of my arrival.

I’ll never forget when I reported to Fort Campbell and went through the reception process that landed me within the battalion of the 3rd Special Troops battalion. They called down to the company in which I was ultimately supposed to be assigned to for my NCO to come get me. SGT Reed came into the battalion and began asking questions about me.

When I told her I was a Special Electronics Device Repairer, she told battalion she was not going to take me! She had no idea what that was or how I was even supposed to be at the Company, and she walked away. Imagine PV2 Barr just standing there. I had no clue what I was supposed to do! I was in new soldier mode; I can only do what I am told! After an argument SGT Reed finally took me to the company and figured out that even though I was not going to do the job I was trained to do I would make a good gopher (go for), and all the details fell to me.

Not long afterwards is when we shipped off to Iraq. I won’t get into the weeds on this but Iraq in 2005-2006 was no place you’d want to be, and I’ll leave it at that. When we finally made it home, I had now been in the Army for 2 years and been advanced to Specialist, but I had not lived with my wife and 2 daughters the entire time. Joined the Army and didn’t come home for 2 years. Imagine the stain, it was there.

I made another choice.

Originally, I just wanted to do my 4-year contract and get out but when we are being told about our next deployment back to Iraq before they can tell us when we are going to finish the current deployment we are on, I knew I was not in the right place. This is the era of stop loss and 12-15/18-month deployments. I was going to not be able to get out on my schedule and I figured that out very quickly looking at the calendar and the deployment tempo. I was offered an opportunity to reenlist. The offer was to add 3 years to my contract, get out of Fort Campbell and $10,000!

I knew this was the move when I spoke to NCOs about this offer, and no one knew where Fort Detrick Maryland even was! This is it! Sign me up. They aren’t deploying out of there and I want to be with my family. By accepting the offer of a 3-year contract it voided the current contract I had, and I was now on the 3-year contract, so I essentially just added a year and got to get out of Fort Campbell.

Fort Detrick was a great decision. I got to go home every night and be with my family. We even had our 3rd daughter. I was strengthening my family and enjoyed what I was doing at work as it was more in line with what I thought I was going to do when I first chose my job. I started college and was promoted to Sergeant! Look at me go!!!! And then the Army and their sick sense of humor came in and crushed all my momentum. I was on assignment for Fort Leonard Wood Missouri as soon as I received my promotion to Sergeant. The beginning of this story, when I was living in a trailer that was falling apart, was right outside Fort Leonard Wood. One of the Pro’s I made on my original list was “GET OUT OF MISSOURI!”.

Not only was this assignment notification a blow but then learning the fact that they were standing up a whole new Brigade and that there was 1 single spot in the entire Brigade for a Sergeant in my MOS. 1! And good ol Army decided I was the man to fill that spot.

What I knew would happen happened. My marriage fell apart. I was unhappy in my role at work as I was back to not doing the job, I signed up for but became a glorified babysitter. I felt everything was all spiraling down and out of control. The foundation was crumbling that I felt I spent the last 4 years building. These were not the terms I had agreed to! I was not in a position that I could walk away from the Army and provide a life for myself and my daughters as I knew I would soon be wifeless. She had already taken the kids and basically left me in a house alone with a couch and a TV. I was back where I started, no I was worse off because now I couldn’t just quit my job, I was under contract for another year.

I believe the Army has a sense of when to go after Soldiers. They came at me with another one of these Can’t turn down offers. A 12-month assignment to Egypt. It checked every box I needed it to. Get out of Missouri! This time I only signed a 1-year extension which made my new commitment to the Army which made me owe 2 years from the day I signed. Signing a 1-year extension for a 1-year assignment that wasn’t going to start for several months seemed like a genius move! I have maintained control of my career by doing this up to that point and as these opportunities kept presenting themselves, I kept jumping on them.

Egypt was one of the greatest years of my life and may have been the perfect place for me in that stage of my life. I was going through my divorce and was surrounded by other guys who were either recently divorced or separated from their families. Needless to say, we had plenty of things to bond over. I maintain a couple friendships to this day with some men I met there and formed a brotherhood.

When my year was up, The Army sent me to Fort Stewart Georgia where I had every intention of just finishing up my contract and walking away. Upon reporting I learned there was an upcoming deployment to Afghanistan. Here we go again. Not doing my job. Baby sitting Soldiers. Getting ready to be shipped overseas for a 9-month deployment. I’m not excited about any of this but I understand the way things work so I moved forward not knowing where the road lead.

Through just chance of fortune, I stumbled upon a recruiting website for a unit in DC that accepted my MOS. So, I applied. I had nothing to lose! I was coming to the end of my contract so if they didn’t accept me, I was out the Army or going to Afghanistan. The moon and stars and planets all aligned for the first time in my life. They had just opened this MOS in the agency and I was one of the first to qualify and the only one with a current Top-Secret clearance thanks to my time back in Fort Detrick Maryland. They accepted me! The only thing I had to do was reenlist and add 4 years to my contract. Deal!

So now I am fresh back from Africa and am accepted to a prestigious position in Washington DC. Insert the Army now. In their wisdom they decide I am not going to Afghanistan because I am too important to put in danger with my upcoming reassignment BUT I have to stay in Georgia a whole year before they will let me go.

I was placed on Rear D after being a Platoon Sergeant of a Platoon in which I was the only one who did not deploy. Talk about feeling like a dirt bag when I was waving goodbye, expecting to leave Georgia while they were gone, only to be a part of the welcoming committee when my soldiers returned. Luckily, I was always up front with all my soldiers, and they never had any bad feelings towards me and again I still have contact with a few of these soldiers to this day.

The day finally comes, and I report to DC. The White House Commination’s Agency. How can I top this? Every day is fun and challenging. I go from having to listen to fart jokes with the combat arms guys to having in depth technical conversations with intellectuals!

Wow. What a nerd!

I remember loving the look on peoples face when I would start discussing wave propagation knowing full well they had no clue what I was saying. I was intellectually stimulated! Advancing through my degree. Learning technical skills well outside of the Army umbrella. Getting certified, technically proficient and becoming a true Subject Matter Expert in this specialized field that was getting requested by name by some very important people. I was doing more than my job, I was innovating advancements and changing the Standard Operating Procedures to better, more efficient ways of ensuring every aspect of our work was Presential Quality.

While I was in Georgia, recently divorced, I was able to take custody of my 3 daughters. So, between the time I returned from Africa, through Georgia, and now DC, I had my daughters. I bought an amazing house for us to live in, in a great neighborhood and had everything in my life better than I had every had before. This is what I worked so hard for! Then I met the woman who would become the mother of my youngest daughter and fiancée. (2013)

Working at the White House Communications Agency could have been a lifetime assignment and I would have been happy until the day I died. Unfortunately, that’s not how the Army works. They asked me for 4 years, I weaseled my way to 6. Again, I am convinced the Army knows exactly how to get to Soldiers! I had been waiting to get promoted from Sergeant to Staff Sergeant for 9 years at this point. I was on the verge of being kicked out due to not advancing. Not by any negative actions on my part or anything I was just on a job that did not have a lot of positions in the Army, so it takes a long, long time for someone above you to either move up themselves or retire.

The Army finally called my name and promoted me to Staff Sergeant but just as before this put me on immediate assignment elsewhere. This time it was Fort Riley Kansas. Fort Riley was gearing up for a 9-month rotation to Poland and upon accepting my new rank I was needing to sign a new contract that would then send me to Poland via Kansas. I have 14 years of service, and I am now a Staff Sergeant which means my contract I just signed was Indefinite.

I didn’t want to throw 14 years away when I was so close to retirement, so I signed and agreed to do the Poland rotation with Fort Riley. Before that though I set the seed to return to DC. The deal being that as soon as I report, I put in another application for DC. When they receive it, they will immediately accept and lock me in to return when the Poland rotation was over. Deal! Let’s do this.

I left my fiancée and daughter in Maryland (in my home) and set off on the plan to do my rotation and return back to the job and family. Army changed the rules again. Minimal 2 years before you can leave. Crap. Then the department in charge of reassigning Service Members decided I had spent enough of my career in DC and blocked the move 3 times. I accept the defeat. I am not going back to DC.

While overseas the woman I left behind in Maryland married another man. I was clueless.

Completely blind sided to everything. I won’t go any further into this.

The Poland rotation ended, and I came back to Kansas. I was $50,000 in debt and maxing out credit cards just to eat. I was alone, homeless, and struggling. I was living in a parking lot in a RV that I had acquired while in DC. Eventually, I was finally able to get back to Maryland and get my house on the market and sold. This is where I was finally able to start rebuilding now for a 3rd time. I was able to rent a house. My teenage daughters returned. My oldest had graduated and was in college now using my GI Bill. As the financial devastation was being rebuilt, I bought a home in Kansas. I was reassigned to a position at the hospital on Fort Riley, technically as a punishment for refusing a position that was beneath me, but it ended up being an amazing place to work that I enjoy.

I received a promotion to Sergeant First Class 1 month after my 17-year mark which means I can retire at 20 years and 1 month as a Sergeant First Class. The way the retirement pay jumps up from Staff Sergeant to Sergeant First Class is pretty good! The position I was sent to at the hospital was with the Soldier Recovery Unit as a Squad Leader.

It was a 1-year assignment and upon completion I would be placed on another 9-month rotation to Poland. Not today, Army! I worked out a deal where I could remain in the SRU for 2 additional years. I kept the fact to myself that this put me directly into my retirement stabilization window! My job was to assist Soldiers who had been found medically unfit to complete their military service. I made sure they had a plan and training to transition back into the civilian world. What a great way to end my career!