In the past several days our family has been on a rollercoaster ride. It started with a phone call from my son’s recruiter asking what day he graduates.
I received the call on a Tuesday and I told him that my son graduates Thursday. They had a job for him and wanted him to leave Wednesday morning. I was in shock. Really? We could actually be facing a last minute send off like this?
I was so grateful that he wasn’t going to graduate in time for this job. My emotions were all over the place. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. I need time to prepare for his leaving.
Then a couple of hours later the recruiter calls again. They have another job for him and he wouldn’t leave until the end of August. Okay, that was much better.
He explained the job to my son, who was very excited about it. Then a few minutes later, we receive another call. My son didn’t qualify for the job because he had failed the depth perception test.
We had hardly recovered from that when maybe an hour later the recruiter called yet again with another job offer. He was he definitely qualified and would be leaving next week. My son wasn’t ready to give an answer so he had to sleep on it.
He decided to accept the job and called his recruiter to tell him. He was told the job might not be available anymore. Really? He would call my son back.
After four hours of waiting, I had to track his recruiter down. Apparently the job is someone else’s but due to weight concerns, that person wasn’t ready to leave. They are giving them a little more time to meet the requirements and if they don’t, my son will take that spot and leave the week after.
However, his recruiter said to be prepared for anything. We need to have his bag packed and ready as he could leave at any time.
One lesson I have learned through this is that when you join the Air Force as a junior, you have more time to secure a job. Because my son only joined a few months ago, it is a lot more uncertain.
Now I have to accept and learn how to handle the possibility of getting very little notice that my son will be leaving. I wonder if this is normal and if other military families have experienced the same thing?
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