Tuesday, January 8, 2008

A Belief in Fate




If you have ever read the "Leven Thumps" series you will probably call me Geth after reading this; because I strongly believe in fate.


When I was born my family was stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. My dad worked for the active army airplane unit. He was a very good soldier! So, The U.S. army parachute team wanted my dad to move to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. But Charlie another soldier, and my dad's best friend outside the family (who I talked about in an earlier blog called "Standing up against Bullies,") had just barely been stationed in Hawaii. My dad finished his first military assignment, so that meant that he had to reenlist. When a soldier swears into the army they sign a contract, that contract lasts for five years, and then they can either quit or re enlist. Which meant that he was able to re enlist and choose any army post that he wanted to work at (with the exception of Utah.) So, Dad re enlisted to Hawaii so we could live by Charlie.




After my dad sent in his re enlistment orders and told him that he wanted to go to Hawaii, things didn't turn out right. The army assignments manager didn't want to send dad to Hawaii. The army assignments manager did a nasty thing to our family. He switched the date of my dad's reenlistment papers so that it looked like he didn't turn the papers in on time. If you don't turn in your papers on time, they don't let you choose your next assignment. So my dad was assigned to go to Washington D.C. instead of Hawaii, all because of a very selfish and nasty man. Dad had no other choice than to accept although he wasn't very happy about it. But he did the smartest thing that any human being can do. He decided to kill the person who had wronged us. Not the kind of killing you're thinking about! But he decided to kill him with kindness so that he would feel guilt and remorse. He sent chocolate covered macadamian nuts a (delicious treat made in Hawaii) to the army assignment manager.




It worked! The assignment manager felt bad about what he had done to our family and promised that he would reassign my dad to Hawaii within the next 9 months, that promise was fulfilled. Because my dad was nice in a bad situation, he gained the respect of the assignments branch. He showed them that he could be flexible. Four years later a new special duty assignment came up and they needed someone to complete the assignment. The assignment involved joining an apache helicopter unit, in Utah! The same old assignment manager rewarded my Dad again and sent our family to Utah, knowing perfectly well that that was were my Dad's home was.




The special duty assignment that my dad was given didn't even exist until the point that he was assigned. It required specialized training, which my dad had, and the rank of sergeant first class, which my dad was at the time. It was like a one in a million chance! Nothing but fate could have put me right here in good old Utah!



3 comments:

Panda Girl said...

Wow! That's pretty amazing!

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Anonymous said...

And we are sooo happy you ended up in Utah! I think that it's amazing that killing with kindness actually worked! Cool!

Anonymous said...

Because you were never curious enough to ask. I didn't call my website name "curiosity15" for nothing! Ashli, I didn't know that story until a couple of days ago! Just ask Grant if you have any questions about it.