DAR dar dar dar

A DAR is a form used to process a DEPper (a person in the Delayed Entry Program) from their current rate and ship date in to either an earlier ship date or an earlier ship date with a different rating. They come in very handy as many people in 2009 are finding themselves entering the armed forces and not going to Bootcamp right away but being able to get in under the banner of a position they don't want to hold, the DAR allows them to hopefully escape that before their first ship date approaches.

I found myself in the same shoes. Starting the process of going to MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) Salt Lake (West Valley really....) back in March of 2009 I found that though my recruiter found me to be within weight range the doc's there didn't. It was May before I was able to go back up but when I Was able to be there again at the start of May I was found to be within tolerance to join the Navy, not necessarily the body fat percent required by the time I left bootcamp, but good enough to join. I was able to join that day, due to an influx of people trying to enter that day I was left entering a job field I didn't want and later than I really wanted, scheduled to enter RTC (Recruit Training Center, aka bootcamp) and was scheduled to leave in March 2010.

I applied my DAR with one recruiter, the paper work stayed on the desk, not to be completed but passed on to another. It seemed to take months, though days were only passing while I waited for something to be done. We realized there was other paperwork that could be done that would allow for the hopeful ensurance of a security clearance. Well, the paperwork was done but it still felt like everything was taking forever. By the time June had come and past I was beginning to lose hope in being sent out as anything other than Corpsman. Before August was ended it would seem that despite two chances of being shipped out luck was not to be in my favor and the waiting process remained, though by now there was time that my paperwork had been rushed through, my DAR had been processed, and if there were openings I would have had one.

Finally it seemed there was hope, after the Chief Selects (Petty Officer First Class's that were selected to be ranked up to Chief Petty Officer) had their pinning ceremony in Denver (for the local region) the current Chiefs serving at MEPS (who had all gone for part of the process of the Chief Selects process of ranking up) all came back on Thursday just last week, though they didn't go back to work until the next day. Oddly enough that was when I got my phone call. Four phone calls to be precise. Operations Specialist leaving November 4th.

The real point of the post....

I went to the temple that night with my wife as we'd planned to do that day, we went and as we entered my wife asked me if we should do Sealings, we'd not done it for a while and it also just Felt right, so we did. We proceded through the sealings, there was quite a group, 5 couples in a small room, we'd been one of two or three groups that actually had to wait before there was an availability to perform the sealings as there'd been a large amount of people who went to the temple that night. While others were performing ordinances my thoughts began to process all that had gone on in the prior months, all that I'd hoped to have happen, and all that would transpire.

It occured to me while I was sitting there, that those on the other side to some degree are very much in the same state that I was in from March through just this past week. Waiting for paperwork to process, hoping to have it done before the end of the week, hoping to receive their phone call, and hoping that their recruiters were still doing their work (in this case the recruiters are you and I, performing ancestral work in all its forms as well as vicarious work for those who've passed on before us) so far away from where they were, praying to not be forgotten.