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Representative Meier (aka LTC Meier) responds to questions about her deployment.
Last week, in a post entitled "A Sign Of The Times" I put up the missive that my state representative, Ms. Melanie Meier, put up about her donning her ACUs and assuming her persona as LTC Meier, Army of the United States.
Several among the readership were, well, lets say they expressed a belief that Ms. Meier had perhaps played some politics on the issue, and we proceeded to have a debate on the state of mustering the force.
Myself, I wasn't that much bothered by her note, even though I did vote for her opponent, who is a lunch-buddy of mine and would have filled the slot in Topeka neatly. But, as with Nancy Boyda, Melanie is my representative, and I'm not withdrawing from the issues of my interest simply because she wasn't my choice. Heh. And I had more access with Nancy than I've had with Ms. Jenkins... I responded to her note with best wishes before I posted it.
Anyway - to shorten this long story up - Melanie sent me this note yesterday, which gives her side of the story:
Anyway - there is LTC Meier's explanation of how she went from Kansas Legislator to soldier at Fort Hood.
Dangit! I forgot to ask her about the Field Grade Didn't Go To War Consolation License Plate. There is a proposal to create a "Legion of Merit" license plate, along with a Silver Star and Bronze Star plate to go with the already-available Purple Heart plate.
Several among the readership were, well, lets say they expressed a belief that Ms. Meier had perhaps played some politics on the issue, and we proceeded to have a debate on the state of mustering the force.
Myself, I wasn't that much bothered by her note, even though I did vote for her opponent, who is a lunch-buddy of mine and would have filled the slot in Topeka neatly. But, as with Nancy Boyda, Melanie is my representative, and I'm not withdrawing from the issues of my interest simply because she wasn't my choice. Heh. And I had more access with Nancy than I've had with Ms. Jenkins... I responded to her note with best wishes before I posted it.
Anyway - to shorten this long story up - Melanie sent me this note yesterday, which gives her side of the story:
Heh. Melanie is an Inspector General. So there's where the "I wanna make policy" bug comes from...Thanks John,
I'm currently at Ft Hood (I reported on the 22d) and not sure how to post directly on your Aaarggghhh Blog [-10 for spelling! -the Armorer] so I'm sending you this to clarify and answer some questions I've seen raised/discussed. Please let me know if you have questions or if something is unclear.
I got cross-leveled to the 304th Sustainment Brigade out of Riverside CA. My cross- level and mobilization orders are dated the same date in early Feb. I spent a few days researching and determining my legislative options while the USARC IG was seeing if I could go to CRC later as an individual, rather than joining the unit here (especially since I was an individual filler - see below). After learning USARC IG could not defer my report date, and that leaving the seat empty while deployed would mean no votes and representation for the 40th District, I made the difficult decision to resign. When I made the decision, I immediately sent out notification to the Secretary of State, the Leavenworth County Democratic Party Chair and the precinct people responsible for determining a replacement. The date and place of the special election were set by the County Party Chair, I had no part in that process after I sent out notifications. I note this because some comments on your blog are about my waiting until after I had left for the election. I was hoping the election would be sooner so I could spend some time with my family and preparing to deploy. As it was, I worked until three days before my report date.
My mobilization was a shocker because my unit at the time, the 89th RRC in Wichita was not on any deployment lists, but since arriving here at Fort Hood I found out why my notification was so short. My entire IG section received short notice orders. My new unit (the 304th) is a group of fillers for the ESC that is their higher HQ and the folks they had in the IG slots were not IGs! Somehow the DA IG noticed it when they reported to Fort Hood on 20 Jan.
Weird...
Thanks and I hope this helps answer some questions on your blog,
Melanie
Anyway - there is LTC Meier's explanation of how she went from Kansas Legislator to soldier at Fort Hood.
Dangit! I forgot to ask her about the Field Grade Didn't Go To War Consolation License Plate. There is a proposal to create a "Legion of Merit" license plate, along with a Silver Star and Bronze Star plate to go with the already-available Purple Heart plate.
best wishes to the good LTC: train safely, travel safely, bring them all back home safely to Fort Living Room when y'all are done.
it's a tough gig being a late fill into a HQ from outside, i hope you at least had already had the opportunity for building some working relationships pre-mobilization. you'll have your hands full. when we went over, my HQ had some that worked out very well that way, others not so much.
John: can she be somehow duly deputized as a boots on the ground occassional correspondent once she gets over to the big show?? granted, getting an IG to talk would be problemmatical, but if she could stream tidbits of local flavor....
Though in her district, on topics military, I don't think she'd take a voter hit from Democrat voters for contributing to a milblog - even a right wing knuckle-dragger like this one. Our democrats around here would be conservative Republicans in a place like Massachusetts or New Jersey.
As I said all along, "unless she got cross-leveled", entire units don't get called up with a week's notice. Her use of the term "unit" in describing the length of her deployment obviously refers to the unit she's deploying with, and not her home unit.
She's not my rep, but I feel much better about this now. Thanks for digging in, John!
Yeah, when I was an NCOIC in a brigade IG office, I used to enjoy doing "pop-in" visits to companies in the field, saying that, and watching the CO's eyes roll back in their heads, heh, heh.