If you have been reading some of my recent posts, you are probably aware that I have been talking about some of my exploits and experiences after being assigned to the Joint Interoperability Test Center (JITC) at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. My story today centers around a subject that is near and dear to my heart, but it is not hunting or running. Sorry to disappoint, if those were topics you were expecting. But hopefully, my subject will still offer you some enjoyment. Today, the subject is about retirement. I know. I know. You’re thinking about that point when you reach that grand old age where you can call everything quits and throw your work hat into the trash, unless of course, you run your own business. Then, you may never fully retire. Why? Well, that seems rather obvious. Your business is your baby. You just couldn’t trust your baby in somebody else’s hands, could you? Of course not. Sure, you hire other people to work for you. But that’s not the same. They just can’t love your baby like you do. They can’t coddle it and nurture it like you do. As a result, you just can’t fully let go. And you might even have kids that you can train to take over the business. But here’s the problem with kids: they don’t love your baby like you do. Thus, their heart just isn’t in it. Oh sure. They love the paycheck. But they hate the work. That’s the nature of kids. Think about it. Have you ever tried to get kids to do chores around the house? Yeah. Now you know exactly what the hell I mean. You entrepreneurs who run your own businesses may have a problem retiring. However, the rest of you who work for somebody else are living for the day when you can retire. Okay. I hate to burst your bubble, but that’s not the retirement that I am talking about. I know. I know. You wanted to hear grandiose stories about soaring off into the sunset to visit exotic places. Zoom, Zoom. Yeah. No. Sorry. This is not that post. This post is about my retirement from the Army. Remember, I mentioned in an earlier post that I didn’t integrate into the regular Army. As a result, I had to submit my retirement paperwork to retire from the Army after twenty years of service. There were reasons for this. First, I was a reservist on active duty in the Army as an officer. Second, I was in what was called voluntary-indefinite status, meaning that I could hang out in the Army as long as I wanted to until I reached the rank of Major. Third, you may recall that I was recently promoted to Major. Fourth, the reason I didn’t want to integrate into the regular Army was that, if I ever accepted future federal government employment, I would have to surrender a portion of my retirement pay. There was no way in hell that I was going to give Uncle Sam back my hard earned retirement pay. Not even one damn dime. Not one nickel. Not even a penny. Oh hell no. But there were some damn fools that would gladly give Uncle Sam a chunk of their retirement pay for the privilege of working for Uncle Sam in a civil service job. That’s kind of like double taxation. Think about it. The government taxes you or takes back a portion of your hard earned money just for the privilege of working for them, plus taking back part of your military retirement pay. That hardly seems fair. It’s kind of like what the service industry does to waitresses. Restaurant employers don’t pay waitresses full minimum wage because waitresses get tips. As a result, waitresses get screwed out of a portion of their pay. The tips shouldn’t have anything to do with it. But restaurant employers have this crooked sense of math. And that crooked sense of math always seems to work to put a few extra bucks into their pockets at the expense of the waitresses. Well, Uncle Sam is exactly the same damn way. The government will stop at nothing to screw its employees. Thus, government employees must always use every loophole to their advantage. Okay. Enough about that. Why am I telling you all of that? That is an excellent question. My wife and I decided to build a house in the local community outside Fort Huachuca. Notice I said that we decided to build a house. We didn’t want to buy somebody else’s house in a military town. We figured that we might be inheriting too damn many problems with the house, if we did that. Thus, we decided to build rather than to buy an existing house. Then, our second decision concerning building a house centered around where we would build. Would it be in a housing development, or would we buy a chunk of land? Here are the problems with building in a housing development. First, you have to choose one of the damn housing developments’ canned floor plans. That’s okay, if there is a floor plan that meets your needs and desires. However, those canned floor plans cannot be modified extensively. Sure. You can make small changes. A little tweak here, a small change there. But nothing major, such as adding a room. Oh hell no. Second, you have a limited choice as to the location of the building site. As a result, you are pretty much stuck with that location, once you have made your selection. Finally, you can’t choose your neighbors, and your neighbors will be living pretty close to you. We decided to go out a little further and select a larger plot of land. We decided to buy an acre of land and have a house built by a custom builder. Thus, we could sit down with an architect and design the floorplan that we wanted. We could also orient the house on the land to get the best view. Naturally, when you are out a little bit further in the boonies, you have to put up with critters. That means you have the occasional rabbit or two running around the yard, and you have the occasional Jake or two. What’s that? Seriously? I can’t believe that we are doing this again. Jake is Jake the snake. Sure. Sometimes, Jake is simply a gopher snake. But usually, Jake is a rattlesnake. Cuz that’s the nature of being out in the boonies. Oh. And you might run into Wile E. Coyote every once in a while. Cuz he’s hungry, and he’s chasing one or two of those rabbits. But unlike the Bugs Bunny cartoon or the roadrunner cartoon, he usually gets lucky and catches one in real life. You can tell because you always hear a loud yelp and a whine when Wile E. takes a chunk out of that rabbit’s ass. But I digress. Cuz the house hasn’t even been built yet. I’m just telling you what we decided to do. My wife and I decided to retire from the Army and build a house, and we encountered minimal exercises in futility.
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