Well, tomorrow is going to be a bad day for me.  I will probably lose my job - at a minimum my boss is going to hate me.

Here is the deal.  I am in the National Guard, working full time at an aircraft hangar.  This job is completely separate from my NG unit, which I drill with one weekend a month, and two weeks a year, plus a Middle East deployment sooner or later.  Yesterday - as expected - my unit called me up and told me we would be activated in preparation for the onslaught of Hurricane Frances, and that I had to report in Friday night at 6 pm ready to go (tomorrow).  The same went for the other four members of my detachment, who are all culled together from separate units.  I am very much looking forward to the activation, and finally getting a chance to genuinely help people, which is what I have been training for for seven years.

The problem is, my chain-of-command at my full time Guard job are telling all five of us that we can't leave, that we are needed at the hangar as aircraft are ferried in from other places, to ride out the storm inside the hangar.  I already know from previous experience during Hurricane Charley three weeks ago that I will be useless, merely observing and standing guard over an empty parking lot.

Right now my full time Guard bosses are basically throwing up a smoke screen to keep us from reporting to our units tomorrow.  I am temporarily in charge, because my normal boss is on leave out of country, and is completely out of contact.  Therefore, his boss is pretty much trying to intimidate me into staying put, instead of reporting.  I am trying to coordinate with four different units to get concrete, written directives for the release of their troops with my left hand, and fending off angry phone calls from this guy with my right.

He actually told me that we needed to stick around, 'and they would work it all out with the units after the fact, by sending them THANK YOU LETTERS!  WTF is that supposed to do!  I am a young soldier, but I wasn't born yesterday.

I have only two real options at this point.  I can stick around and get in deep shit with my unit for failing to report, or I can report in for hurricane deployment and get in deep shit with my full time boss.  I have been stressing like a motherfucker over this one today.

Here is what I have decided to do.  I will report to work tomorrow morning  as usual, and spend as much time as possible trying to resolve this situation over the phone.  However, I will have all my deployment gear in my vehicle, and if I haven't recieved written orders to stay put by 4 pm, I will simply abandon my post and report to my unit, and see what happens.  When I do that , I will undoubtably lose my full time job.

Unfortunately, there is no right answer to this one.  All I am basing my decision on is that I will do more good down south where the hurricane hits, rather than guarding a parking lot.  This job is only a paycheck to me, nothing more, and I didn't intend to stick with it much longer anyway.

One last thing, my full time boss, the one who is trying to make me stick around, is probably the worst officer I have ever had the displeasure of serving under, and doesn't care one whit about any of his troops.  That has had much to do with influencing my decision as well.

The unit activating you should have a laison that can help you with this, contact your chain of command ASAP

Thanks for the support, guys.  I have already been able to help one of my guys get back with his unit with no problems (hopefully).  The rest I will have to do in the morning.  This really sucks because I take pride in having never been fired or leaving a job with anything but an attaboy from the boss and coworkers.  

I will try to update when I can, but I doubt that I will have internet access for quite some time after the hurricane hits.  Best of luck to all until then.

Now it is time to hit the sack for a long day tomorrow.

  Woohoo!  I won.  I informed my superiors over the phone that I considered unit orders to supercede job orders, and after they called around to all the units themselves, they threw in the towel, and are releasing all of us to our units, without any more drama.  

This is a big weight off of my shoulders, and I am glad it worked out much better than I anticipated.  I did not expect to still have a job after this morning, but it looks like that won't be a problem any more.  

[\big sigh of relief]

Good luck over there.  Stay safe.