R
Ronicalo
Guest
in my senior year in high school i asked a simple question. "what does the Navy do?" in my interest, a cunning recruiter manages to fool me into joining within two months i was set to leave august 1997. when i joined it was september 1996. from what i was told i had to take a physical to see if i was eligible for joining. of course i passed and that same day i was under oath. i called to the recruiters attention that i had changed my mind about the whole thing but he refused to listen. after several times of making excuses not to go, he referred me to his supervisor. the supervisor said that maybe i wasn't sure what i wanted and that i should wait until May 1997 to decide if i still wanted to go. In April 1997 i was still positive that i didn't want to go. i spoke again with the supervisor and he simply said that this was no longer in their hands and i had to go to bootcamp in Great Lakes, IL to get out. the supervisor told me that this was the ONLY way to get out of this situation. i even had a witness on three way. she heard every word spoken. i asked him three times "are you sure that this is the only way to get out of this?" he says "yes,i'm positive." he said that when i was to arrive in Great Lakes that they would ask people to raise their hands if they didn't want to be there. i would then raise my hand and i'd be on my way home within three days. he reassured me for the last time that this was true. i decide that i have to do the right thing. so i go. when i get there it is nothing like what he says. we get a 3 minute phone call home and rest is silence or you get yelled at. i remained there two months and some additional weeks across the street in apprenticeship school before i have a chance to go home in November 1997. my next duty station is in Guam on a ship for the next two years. i was angry and hurt that the Navy was nothing like the recruiter explained or what i perceived it to be. so on December 5,1997 instead of boarding the plane to Guam i rebel and leave the country. i stay in Mexico for a month with my grandmother. i return to Texas in January and proceed to call my ship to report awol. they give me the run-arounds. i talk to 5 different people and end up calling the ship back. the only thing that they tell me is that i should jump on the next flight to Guam. i didn't have $800 to catch that flight and they had my phone number, address, and all other information necessary to contact me. they never did. as a matter of fact they didn't report me missing. i found this out in March of this year when i decided to turn my self in. no one knew i was missing. obviously no one cared. i was flown to Corpus Christi, Tx within a couple of hours. i had a technical arrest orders and i could not leave the Houston building. i was told that i would be staying one week before all the paper work was finished. i was not prepared for anything so i had no money. once again i heard lies. they didn't start processing anything. i was working for the Naval Air Station's recycling center and i wasn't getting paid. i only had $20 to last me a week. i ate only lunch throughout the whole week. they didn't have a galley(cafeteria) to eat at. just resataurants and i had no money. they said i had to wait another week to see if they were even going to start my pay again. since the time i had gone awol they had paid me three months after and i took the money so i owed them close to $3000. i was willing to pay it back but i couldn't work for free. seeing that i had no money to my name after the first week, i left. i couldn't stay under those cicumstances. i went awol for the second time. while in Corpus Christi, i called and wrote to my Congressman Ron Paul's office. they offered to help but also told me i had to wait. i couldn't, and a week after i left Corpus i called and spoke to his office. they said that they could not help because i had gone awol and the best thing for me was to return to Corpus. i couldn't take any more reassurances. i have to work to pay bills. i can't work for free while at the same time starve.
Please help,
awol x two
Please help,
awol x two