First mistake. It is now no longer your life.
Please, please, PLEASE exhaust the Chain of Command before going for a Congressional Inquiry. Nothing sours the bosses (ALL the bosses) faster than one of those hitting them upside the head without them having a chance at the problem first.
Other than that, Enjoy the Ride!
I still don’t know dick. I have not received a phone call in about a week. Nor do I expect one. As far as the Air Force is concerned I apparently no longer exist.
You know what? I’m beginning to think that eating a shotgun would be easier than going through this. I’m gonna take this opportunity to say that I am now officially 100% broke, everyone in my family thinks that this situation is MY fault, and I’m sick to death of pretty much anything and everything anymore.
I give the fuck up. I no longer care what happens to me. I am but a worm in the apple that is humanity. I did everything right, and yet it’s still fucked up. That, my friends, should be my epitaph.
I’ll update you further, if I ever have anything to update you about.
-Drama Queen Dave
Dave, as someone who has had more experience with the government than anyone should and STILL wants to make it his life’s work, I smell your dog. (smell your dog= feel your pain in Clintonian sense).
Don’t give up. This is just the system that screws us all, my brother. It gets applied equally to all of us. Hang in there and console yourself with the thought that you. like me, will be actually be getting paid for doing something you want to do, unlike 98% of the population.
False_God (who is getting into the April class, and is going to be doing tech support until then, thus bringing it to a full year for his “induction period”)
As someone who spent the first half of the year living in complete poverty, I can relate. If you need a place to crash, my couch is always open 
Hang in there hon…I’m sure things will turn around soon
(This is the point where I’d cyber-hug you, if I weren’t complete opposed to the idea…)
I love you babe!
I read about an inscription on a Vietnam-era Zippo once that fits this situation perfectly (change the branch of service as you see fit:
“I love the fucking Army, and the Army loves fucking me.”
Hang in there. You’ll get what you want out of these people eventually.
I’ll let you in on a little secret - Going to a congressional office is about as useless as tits on a boar. I have been a Congressional Liason for VA, I know how the system works.
You have a problem with the military or VA.
You correspond with the military or VA.
They respond to you.
You don’t agree with the response.
You contact a congressional office.
Congressional office forwards your inquiry to the military or VA.
The military or VA responds to the congressional office with the exact answer they have been telling you all along.
The congressional office takes the information sent from the military or VA and re-drafts a letter of their own.
They send you the letter.
Congressional offices do squat for you except for acting as an additional step in the mailing process.
Interesting POV…
I watched a guy use his ‘right to communicate with his Elected Representative’ very effectively. In fact, as a “fuck you” to his command, he wallpapered his barracks room with the correspondance. The first few letters coming back from his Representative were form letters ‘signed’ with a rubber stamp, but then came the typewitten letters, at greater length, signed by hand, and then, towards the end of the montage, were the hand-written letters.
He got the proper care he was due, and not the raping the Nav was offering.
The lesson here is: When communicating with officaldom, be patient, respectfull, and persistant. That applies to your Chain Of Command, as well as your Elected Representatives.
Diane, to some degree, I agree with you. However, congressional liaisons are remarkably effective, as long as their priorities are the same as yours.
My former congressman, Charles Stenholm (D-TX), took some of my problems personally enough to send his head aide crawling up the ass of several Naval offices. Records I’d been told had been lost magically turned up with a desperate plea to call off the dogs. In fact, when he spoke to an assembly at my college, I went up to him and introduced myself. He knew my name and problems well enough that we discussed it without my having to prompt him. Suffice it to say, I voted for him twice.
It can be done with a little persuasion and some persistence.
Robin
Granted, I have not been a Congressional Liason for the military but I have for other sectors of the Government. I also deal directly with the Congressional Liason for VA as well as the Congressional offices. I have been involved for almost 15 years.
I am not sure of the proceedures in the military, but I can tell you with all certainty that when someone contacts a congressional office for representation against a federal agency, the only action taken is to forward the letter to the fed agency to address the persons concerns. The fed agency then responds to the congressional office who in turn rewrites the letter and forwards back to the person.
I have seen a number of congressional letters written by one person regarding one concern. You’re right, the letters get more personable but they still go through the same proceedure. The letters personally signed by the Congressmen or Senators are not actually written (or probably read). Most likely they are just part of a stack of letters prepared by the staff for signature.
The sad truth is that unless it is a Bill the congressman is trying to pass or a high profile concern, they really don’t get involved more than passing letters back and forth.
Also, many of our veterans that have gone through congressional offices and have success in their case believe it was the result of the congressman. What they don’t realize is that the result would have been exactly the same if they had just been a little patient.
Nah. I’ve seen too many people ground up in the gears to believe that. In every case in the Nav that I witnessed where the writer actually had a case, proper communication with an Elected Representative produced radically different results than those who had a case and didn’t write to Congress. Conversly, improper Congressional communication also had a result, but one the writer wished not to recieve. As a former recruiter, I saw many Congressional investigations, and they were all big, hairy, and covered in scales.
The process at the congresman’s office may be more impersonal than I realized, but at least in my experience, impersonal or not, it’s effective when used correctly. The difference may be that Federal Agencies are run by bureaucrats who could care less if Representative Umptysquat is pissed. The Military is run by officers that want to make high rank, and the flag-rank promtion lists are voted upon by Congress. It doesn’t pay to piss-off Congress when your promotion is at stake, and no flag-rank (or wannabe flag-rank) officer is going to risk their promotion by allowing their subordinates to screw-off on a Congressional Investigation.
When you say “Congressional investigation”, to what extent are you refering? Joe-Blow who writes a letter to a Congressman asking him to investigate why his disability claim is rated at 40% when he feels it should be 60%?
Again, I do not have experience with Congressional contact with the military, but I do have 15 years, hands on, behind the scene, literally hundreds of cases, experience with Congressional involvement with Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Labor, Department of Veterans Affair, and the VA Health Care Service. NEVER have I seen a congressman get involved to an extent that a decision is over turned, someone is awarded something that they wouldn’t have been awarded anyway (in the same period of time), nor have I seen records “mysteriously” found. EVER.
I have seen some involvement in certain areas such as waterways, land management, and miscellaneous bills that are in the house, but only when a congressman is sponsoring a particular high profile issue, and it is never limited to one individual personal concern.
It is naive to think that a congressman will personally get involved with every congressional letter sent to them especially when you consider the amount of requests they receive each day. I can assure you that based on a scale of important issues in a congressman’s day, one letter from one potential voter is pretty low on the priority list. I can tell you with all certainty that the staff forwards the letters on to whichever agency is involved and then simply re-writes their response and mails it back to the originator.
Once in a great while, a staffer will contact the fed agency and ask for information to pass on to someone. Again, it is simply a relay of information.
I should have clarified “contacted via phone call”.
I can’t speak to Federal Agencies, but the Military snaps-to when they get a call from the Congressman’s office. I’ve personally been the investigating officer in two investigations, have provided evidence/information/assistance in a dozen more, and witnessed maybe another dozen or so from the sidelines. Only a few returned a major victory for the service member, most returned some changes in treatment/acceleration in processing/review of decisions (most with a favorable result), a few were unfounded or malicious and resulted in discipling for the service member.
It’s jokingly said in recruiting that you’re not doing your job until you’ve had at least one Congressional Investigation called on you. While that’s not really true, they happen often enough, and are always taken very seriously. Fortunately for recruiters, most investigations called on them are unfounded or malicious, usually by relatives of a new recruit whom don’t approve and believe the recruiter must have done something unethical to get little Johnny to join up. Unfortunately, there are just enough idiot recruiters out there to make such investigations popular with Congressmen, who get to play hero to little Johnny’s mom, hoping to get voter loyalty. Cynical much? Anyway, if this kind of investigation is founded, the recuiter get sacked, with, at a minimum, a ‘fault’ transfer to the nearest unit that needs a spare body. Sometimes much stronger measures are called for, and God help the unethical recruiter that gets an irate Congressman on his neck.
Enough about the special conditions of Congressoinal Investigations in recruiting. The kinds of investigations that I’ve seen return the most dramatic results in favor of the service member revolved around pay and medical benfits, especially disability amd medical discharge. It’s common that the military medical establshment grinds some poor bastard up in the gears, either denying the disability as ‘service related’, or just dropping the poor SOB on the VA’s hands without proper medical review and care. This is when, Before being discharged, but after all offical proceedures and appeals have been used, that a call to the Representative comes into it’s most effective play. No Representative is going to waste time following up on someone who hasn’t gone the whole route, or who hasn’t done their homework, but when all the ducks have been placed in a row, every “I” dotted, every “T” crossed, then the Congressional investigation is usefull. Too bad few people actually do it right.
Again, it’s all about persistance and respect. When the service member follows-through, the odds of a decision in their favor go way up. OTOH, I’ve seen service members fail to follow up, and thereby lose benefits, money, and other things that were their due by right and law.
Finally, after a considerable amount of hand wringing, despair, and overt depression, I have achieved results.
My ass is outta here on November 20. 
It only took 15 phone calls, a few unannounced visits, some harsh words, and a whole hell of a lot of patience, but I’m finally happy. I’ve got a considerable amount of work to do before I leave [sub]cough cough Getting in shape[/sub], so I’ll be around, just not so much. Not as though I’ll be missed or anything… 
Anyway, after making you all suffer through this with me, I felt I owed it to you to tell the good news. Thanks for all your support, I would never have made it without all your help.
I love you guys.
-Dave
Woohoo! That’s awesome news, Dave. And you’ll be around for Dope-A-Ween! See you there!
Yay! This is great news, sweetie
::MsRobyn happily cancels her day off for Thanksgiving and starts making plans for Airman’s graduation in January::
Robin
Bravo!
But I admit…I’m a little pleased that you’ll be here for the Dope-A-Ween…
Don’t hold it against me!
Congratulations, Airman Doors!
Glad you got your ship date, and I’m also glad you will be there for Dope-A-Ween. The cheesesteak challenge promises to be a blast!
Zap-A-Rino
Yay Dave!
So are we going to do that whole bar-hopping thing, or do you not want more pics of you puking on my car?
Why would you want pics of that? And no, I don’t want to see them. Really!
Robin