The stress never ends!

So, yesterday we went to talk to the recruiter again. Hazen made the call on Wednesday that he would like to go back in so we had to return his paperwork to the recruiter to get the ball rolling. This particular recruiter works Butte and Helena, and so he was in Helena Thursday and didn't give much time to Hazen to fill out the paperwork (he refused to do it until he'd made the decision).

Well, we get to our meeting and find out that he has to have his EPRs (performance evaluations) before he can do MEPS. The problem with that is that he was only ever given 2 of his 5. He had to have all of them. Okay, no big deal, we'll call Nellis and get the records, right? Yeah, no. Nellis has gone electronic. That sounds more convenient right? Again, you would be wrong. They send their electronic files to the National Archives after an Airman separates. Here is how the conversation went between Nellis and the recruiter:

Recruiter: "I need the EPR records for Hazen Noble. Do you hold those?"
Nellis: "We no longer keep those records. We send them to the National Archives. It is the service member's responsibility to print them before they separate."
Recruiter: "Okay, that makes sense. But do you tell them that?"
Nellis: "Well, no..."

So it seems we call the National Archives, they have this stuff electronically, they type a little something into the computer and wa-la! Records. Again, not so. They get over 1.4 MILLION requests from veterans a year for things like DD-214s, medical records, waivers, EPRs, etc, etc. The extreme volume of requests means that it takes FIVE MONTHS OR LONGER for them to get to each request. So we were talking being pushed back 5 months when we were under the impression this should all be taken care of by December or January. December or January is the absolute longest we have--we are going to lose unemployment in December.

At this point, Hazen is completely depressed. I'm ripping apart the house hoping beyond all hope that MAYBE, somewhere, these elusive EPRs are actually in our possession. I'm telling Hazen not to worry, it will be fine. But I don't feel like it will be fine at all.

I go back to work and I spend over an hour looking up ways to get EPRs (I'm a good employee, really!). I finally find something that says if the member hasn't finished the 8 year enlistment (in Hazen's case it's 6 years active, 2 years reserves) then the Reserve Personnel Center in Denver should have them. Since Hazen has a year left in the reserves, he gave them a call. And what do you know, within 20 minutes he had all five emailed to him.

Phew!!!