SRP continued (Part two)

So now we are at SRP and we are lined up and go through a metal detector with guards and everything. So we are now safe as long as nobody gets anything in.  “Beep-beep-beep…oops, my glasses case right here…thanks!”

SRP takes from three to five days upon arrival to complete.  We have completed this exact same process at Camp Roberts at least twice now to make sure that the process here will go smoothly.  More importantly it ensures that Soldiers who aren’t “deployable” ever travel to Ft. Hood, because if Ft. Hood finds them non-deployable they process them out of the army.  That means we are now short Soldiers who we trained with and planned to bring.

(When they didn’t do this the Guard would lose up to 25% of Soldiers at the mobilization site.  All the undiagnosed diabetes, high blood pressure, sickle cell anemia, HIV positive, blind, deaf and other medical problems that none of us knew about (or were hiding) come out.

So now that we are here the SRP process goes pretty fast.  Fortunately all the shots I received at Camp Roberts SRP were coded so I didn’t receive them again.  My buddies were not so lucky.  In language suitable for a good solid “R” rated movie they explain how they had to get all the shots all over again.  Bummer for them! 

The HIV test provided an interesting story (stop reading now because this will be booooring).  Soldiers are required to arrive with a hard copy of their HIV results and they must be within 90 days.  Nobody ever provides a hard copy because if they are “HIV positive” then they don’t get mobilized.  When you take an HIV test the results are placed into a medical program called “MEDPROs”.  This is a fine program and one of about six the medical people use.  (And if the Army can’t get it right onto just one program I am sure the federal Government can!) But Ft. Hood requires a hard copy because MEDPROs only shows that you took the test.  It can’t show the results of the test (ever read “Catch 22”?) because that would violate HIPAA. 

We didn’t know about that 90 day requirement and it takes 5 days (working days) to get the results of the HIV test. So it was important we get that because you are forbidden from doing any training until after you pass SRP of which HIV testing is obviously a critical component.  So we didn’t have the test inside of 90 days of deployment so all of the HQ (about 140 Soldiers in our case) had to go to Camp Roberts to get another blood draw for HIV.  That means paying people salary, paying per diem and travel both there and back.  The work is contracted at Camp Roberts to a company that travels the nation doing “Pre-SRPs”.

Oops!  Somebody didn’t mail those HIV draws in time!  That means a large batch need to have their HIV blood drawn again, but this time we will have our own people do it at our HQ in Fresno.  Isn’t that great?  Finally we are HIV complete.

Start reading again HERE:

The SRP staff is mostly contracted out to the friendliest people you ever wanted to meet.  Folks from Texas are pretty nice anyway and these are all friendly even though they are doing it every day.  Basically the process is like the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) only much more friendly and helpful.   They also have many more steps.

Step #1:  After coming into the door and being scanned you use your identification card to prove you started.  If you ever want to leave you have to go to station 14B to be temporarily scanned out.  The steps in between include finance (“…so if you die your beneficiary is here.  Do you want to have a contingent beneficiary?”)

“Next!” is called out as different Soldiers finish and a position opens at one of the finance desks.  En masse the whole group waiting rises and moves over one chair as the first chair Soldier moves away to the desk.  The first Soldier in the second row moves all the way around gets in the last seat of the first row.  It goes on without complaint but mindlessly the Soldiers rise, move over one chair and sit.  Is that bad?  It is all relative and it could be worse!  This is air conditioned (or heated) with comfortable chairs and no yelling.    And really, do you have a choice?

Joy comes when you finish.  Ideally you finish before your buddies, as this is a small emotional victory in a meaningless contest to complete a mandatory requirement.  361 (days remaining).