To Relang or Not to Relang, that is the question

Russ has wanted to relang for a while - he's really upset that he got sent to DLI right after BCT instead of going to AIT (which is what the do with people now). He also happens to be the last non-careerist SPC (specialist - E-4 rank) here in his company. He is the highest ranking enlisted in his company right now, but technically, he's lower ranking than some of the privates in his company, because he is not a careerist yet. 

Yesterday I met a new family that just got here from AIT. I asked them whether they were living in Lower Stillwell (like us) or in Hayes Park, like the NCOs. Well, they were like "We're not sure." And I asked them their rank. "Specialist" Oh, like Russ, hooray! They'll be in Lower Stillwell with us! "... but I'm due for a promotion in a month." Oh, that's right... everyone is promotable... except Russ... who will be an IET specialist until September 2010. What makes it the most frustrating is that we're not just about to go to AIT. We have another year to stay here... and as of the end of the summer, no friends. Well, I will be able to be friends with the wives, but we won't be able to hang out as families. Why? You ask... let me explain...

The army has this ridiculous rule that IET soldier can't socialize with anyone but other IET soldiers. And on top of that, E-4 and below can't socialize with NCO's (E-5 and above). So, while there are no rules about wives hanging out together (I have a few friends whose husbands are Sgts), when it comes to getting our families together, no can do. They get in trouble with their commanding officers or something.

Things have been okay so far - we've had lots of friends that hadn't gone to AIT yet, so we had lots of company. Unfortunately, they changed things up just as Russ was leaving BCT. Which is why his orders were changed three times. Anyway, so now, after all our friends leave for AIT, we will be left here in Monterey - and all the new 35M's from the UTNG (which are pretty much the only people who come down here) will be careerists, and shortly after arrival will most likely be promoting to E-5. Which means...? We are left all by our lonesomes. Not to mention how frustrating it is that soldiers who have been enlisted for HALF the time Russ has been are higher ranking than him. These are soldiers who have been in for just barely their time in Basic and their time in AIT. Russ has been in the guard for a year and a half already... and he is condemned to E-4-hood (NON-careerist) for ANOTHER year and a half. What about this picture is horribly wrong?

Anyway... it didn't seem so bad when we were suffering through it with other families... but all those families will be leaving before we're even half way to Russ' end-of-IET. Now that we're suffering it alone, it's a little more frustrating. 

So - we've been talking about relanging. Basically that means Russ will DLPT out of Portuguese, and he'll go straight to AIT in Arizona. The only problem is that he's already been through an entire semester of Chinese on the government's money. 

Scenario 1 - Russ DLPT's out of Portuguese, goes to AIT, and the UTNG pays for him to come back to DLI to learn Chinese or Korean or something. He comes back to DLI, promotes to SGT, and we make an extra $13,000 than we would have if we had just stayed here and suffered out our loneliness and non-promotability (on top of all that, the Guard starts paying for his Student loans, so we don't have to worry about that anymore). This would put us back in Utah in summer 2011 instead of 2010. We get half our bonus after AIT, put it in a CD, then get the other half and put it in a CD, and we get to save even more money for a house in UT when we get back.

Scenario 2 - Russ DLPT's out of Portuguese, goes to AIT, and the UTNG doesn't let him come back to DLI. In this case, we go back to Utah around January 2010, and Russ finds a civilian job hopefully paying more than active duty E-5 pay anyway. The Guard starts paying his student loans, and we get half of Russ' bonus to put in a CD until we decide to buy a house. We still make more money than we would staying here. Russ also promotes to E-5, so he gets paid more on his once a month drills and during his two week summer training. 

Scenario 3 - The UTNG makes Russ stay here and finish Chinese. We stick it out, learn to deal with being the only family of our pay grade and rank and IET status. We grow closer to each other because we don't have anyone else to hang out with. Russ goes to AIT as scheduled, we get our whole bonus in the end of 2010, the Guard starts paying for Russ' student loans. Russ gets a civilian job in 2011, and promotes to SGT so he gets the extra bucks during the weekend drills and two week summer training.

In Scenario 1 and 2, Russ gets to promote earlier, we make more money because either he gets active duty pay as a SGT, or he gets civilian pay as a linguist somewhere else.

Well, anyway... we aren't making any decisions yet... just trying to get information about which of the above scenarios are possible.

Meanwhile, we're going to enjoy our last few months with our awesome friends from the UTNG! :D

Glossary of Terms and Acronyms:

IET - initial entry training

SGT- sergeant 

DLI - Defense Language Institute

AIT - Advanced Individual Training, a lot like basic training Part II. Job-specific training.

BCT - basic combat training (better known as basic training)

careerist - an enlisted member who has completed both BCT and AIT and is an "official" soldier

UTNG - Utah National Guard