Sitting Waiting Wishing / The Trent Report

Trent has passed the half way point of his time in Iraq. I think if he ends up staying an extra week until his replacement arrives, this is still true, but I could be off by a day or two.

In the last week, job assignment season has kicked in full force. Trent had to put in his "dream sheet" after looking at the "shopping list" last fall. New jobs pop up from time to time of course and then, if interested, you just alter your dream sheet. Early this month the Commander's List (O-5) of job assignments went up. A couple of weeks went by to allow those individuals to say yes, to choose to retire, etc. and now placing the Lt. Commanders (o-4s) is in full force. Late last week, Trent e-mailed me with a list of new job codes that were up. He then talked with his program director and later to his detailer. The fun part of this is getting to hear from Trent even more often. Now, however, comes the sitting waiting and wishing. That is a great Jack Johnson song by the way. Trent has updated his dream sheet for the last time, and we should know in a week give or take where we are headed this summer. We feel fairly confident that we have a good idea what job Trent is getting, but since nothing is final until it is final, I won't speculate on the blog.

Also on the sitting, waiting wishing note, February is almost over, and I still haven't received my two copies of the Naval Law Review. That is right. This is the month in which Trent's paper is supposed to be published, and they are sending us two copies. I have read the paper several times, but I would really like to see the final edit on it. I am not surprised that it is a little slow, but I still wait for it every day.

On a final Trent Report related note, Trent's replacement has been named. I am admittedly biased, but I think it reflects well on Trent that his replacement comes from the Coast Guard. The fact that Trent is in the Coast Guard is not why he is there. He works for CLAMO (the Army's Center of Law and Military Operations) right now, and he is who they got when they asked CLAMO for someone. CLAMO doesn't have someone of the same rank available to replace Trent, because that individual will be in Afghanistan. Instead of looking elsewhere in the Army JAG Corp, they are replacing him with another member of the Coast Guard. There could be several practical reasons for this including the Coast Guard's own desire to be involved with Multi National Forces Iraq. I, however, choose to think that it does, in part, reflect well on the job Trent is doing.

Six more weeks and change.