Judgment Day moved to the right

Wednesday, February 3rd was supposed to be my judgment day -- the day when I met with the brigade commander to discuss the change of command from me to the next guy. Instead, it will be Friday the 5th.

If he gives me the thumbs up, the change of command ceremony takes place on the 11th and I'll leave Korea about a week later. If I get a thumbs down, it will create a big mess and I don't really know how things will work out.

There are two ways the Friday meeting can go badly. The first relates to an $11,000 twenty-foot container that got turned in about a year ago. I have the turn-in document, but it was signed by a person that didn't have the proper authority to do so. The easy solution is a "short FLIPL," an administrative adjustment that would acknowledge there was no negligence involved and I leave happily. The more painful alternative would be a full-blown investigation that delays my departure timeline.

The second way this can go badly relates to equipment shortages. When I took command, I didn't know enough about how things were supposed to go to document all the components on hand. Although we've since fixed that problem, there's the question of how to recognize the difference. (In Army math, "I don't know" minus "a lot" can equal "a lot of junk is missing and it's your fault.")

If the brigade commander orders an investigation to look into the cause of the equipment shortages, this also might take a lot of time and may even cost me a month's base pay. There are all kinds of reasons for why this couldn't be resolved earlier, but even a zero-liability finding won't matter if I get stuck here doing nothing and my orders get deleted.

So I have until Friday to develop my briefing. Although I think it will go well, you never can tell. And my faith that "everything will be OK" is not congruent to my hope that "things will go the way I want them to."