Retired? Yes..I am Retired at 24 years old

How on earth did I forget to post about this amazing event?! On April 15th, 8 days after I had been home and away from Jared something spectacular happened. That week was kind of a rough one for us because Jared and I had been a part and he was very frustrated and depressed. The hardest thing about it was that I was not in California to comfort him, so it was dealing with it alone. Being 100% alone is not one of Jared's strong points. If he is alone he is on the phone so he doesnt feel that he is by himself. It's weird to me haha. He was preparing to fly to Washington D.C. to fight for his medical retirement from the Marines, but nothing was going the way we had hoped. His doctor whom was supposed to write Jared a letter to help his case was nowhere to be found...turns out the Bastard retired and didn't say anything so it left us high and dry. The attorney was having a hard time helping us out and Jared was getting yelled at a lot by his chain of command for the lamest things. Poor Jared!

An example of these butt chewings went like this: Jared needed a written letter from his Gunnery Sergeant that talked about how Jared performed in his job. Jared tried to explain to him that he needed this letter and that his attorney would contact him with further information. He basically told him to Chill the Eff out and that it would get done, so get out of his face. Apparently the Attorney doesn't know how to talk to a Grunt so when he called he just said "Hey I need a letter for Cpl Jackson." The Gunny yelled at him that Jared already was bugging him about it, and that it would get done.Then he hung up on him. That in turn came the butt chewing session on Jared because he was being "inpatient". After he yelled until he was blue in the face, Jared calmly explained why the attorney called, and what he was trying to ask of him before he hung up on him. The gunny then was like "oh..my bad..what's his number I'll call him back". So dumb!! After he talked like a civil person he felt that he couldn't help Jared after he said he would. He told Jared that he wasn't comfortable writting a letter about him doing his job discription since he had never seen him actually perform as an assaultman. I personally agreed that it was good of him not to lie in a letter, but it still sucked that it left us to fight for ourselves again. What else is new..Us fighting for what we deserve because the Marine corps doesn't give a shit. Yup, done that routine for the last 4 and a half years why would that change now.

So needless to say, Jared was really worried about going to D.C to fight this when he had no one's help to prove how badly being blow up twice had ruined his health. His attorney made one last attempt for us and he put in Jared's reconsideration letter to the formal board. We prayed that it would go through and they would just change their mind on his percent rating. (The military gives you a rating when you get out if you are hurt. That determines your disablity pay for the rest of your life. The military gives you a percent and then the Veteran Affairs gives you a percent.)  Keep in mind here people that the board could horribly go NOT in our favor and just take everything away from us. They only gave us a 10% anyways which was terrible for everything that Jared has wrong.

Back to April 15th. I have been trying to be really active while I have been home so I decided to go outside and rake the lawn. I figured help the grass grow after winter and get an arm workout the same time right? :) Well I got a phone call from Jared in the middle of it and he sounded a little sad. He said
 "Do you want the bad news?"  Me: "Oh great what did they do to us now?!" J: "Well my attorney just called and he said that he heard something back from the board over my reconsideration letter....They decided to take away my 10 percent...."   C: "What the hell for?! To give us the 30% like we wanted?!" (Yes I was pissed hahah)  J: "YES!! They looked over my letter and they felt that what I was asking wasn't unreasonable. They decided that they would give me Medical Retirement! So now I don't have to go to D.C. I am now in the system as retired. Now I just need to go sign paperwork to get it all processed. WE WON!" C: "ARE YOU SERIOUS..NO..YOU'RE KIDDING..OMG!!" Then I burst into tears hahahaha. Happy tears of course. I haven't had a good phone call like that in a long time. Emotions just came over me because I knew the fight was over. Everything we have dealt with the Marines, as horrible as they were, was over. What a feeling to know that we will be taken care of for the rest of our lives. Especially because Jared has so many medical problems now. He has been complaining a lot lately that his back has been having problems, so once he is out...he just might need another surgery on it.

As weird as it sounds when I say it out loud...My husband was a Military Veteran at the age of 20 years old and he is now Medically Retired from the Military at the age of 24.  Finally a happy ending to a 4 1/2 military hell! YAY US!