More from Signal Land

Another fantastic update from Kevin at Iraq Part II.

It turns out that Kevin, a Signal Officer, won't be the Signal Officer for the Field Artillery Battalion he's been assigned to. They already have a Signal Officer. Kevin will be a staff officer or a battery commander--slots usually reserved for FA officers. This FA unit, incidentally, is from Northern California.

So for those of you counting at home...Kevin from New Jersey, who wants to go Civil Affairs and was trained as a Signal Officer, is being assigned to a Northern California Field Artillery unit to fill a Field Artillery slot.

I am a Field Artillery Officer who lives (until recently) in Northern California, and they're sending me to Civil Affairs. I actually prefer CA to FA at this point in my life...more interesting work, better opportunity to take advantage of my MBA skill-sets...but still. Wow.

And of course, we all remember Kevin's fellow signal officer who wants to stay signal, just finished his master's in Comp Sci...and he's getting sent CA as well.

I think all of this kind of speaks for itself at this point, but it just goes to show--we don't have the infrastructure and systems in place at Army Human Resources to effectively match IRR soldiers against demand. There are certainly an infinite number of bigger problems in the world. But still.