Rear Detachment

The Rear Detachment (Rear D) is the soldiers that stay behind when a unit deploys.  During my first deployment, my understanding of the rear detachment was limited to being little more than soldiers who had managed to find a reason not to deploy.  As time went on and our deployment was extended from 12 to 15 months, my patience for some of the griping that I was hearing about from some of the individuals on the rear d greatly diminished.  So by the time we redeployed, as we were standing there waiting to be released for block leave, I was a little irritated when they took the time to recognize the rear d.

It wasn't until my second deployment that I finally got a view from the other side of the fence.  Four months into my second deployment, my unit received new orders and would be shifting from Iraq to Afghanistan.  Due to an injury from my first deployment and encouragement from the chain of command, instead of boarding a plane to Afghanistan, I found myself en route to Landstuhl, Germany.

After spending ten days at the hospital, I was shifted back to my unit in Katterbach, Germany for continuous care.  At that point, my 'other side of the fence' view started.  I had already been designated as the FRL (Family Readiness Liaison) which is basically being a direct connection between the command forward and the families in the rear.  Shortly after that, I found myself in the role of the Rear D 1SG (First Sergeant).  At that point in time, our rear d consisted of seven soldiers, including the rear d commander. 

Over the next eight months, we had nine more soldiers added to the ranks as two were medevaced back, three had either injured themselves or became extremely sick while on midtour, one was sent back for being pregnant, one for telling the chaplain she was a lesbian (this was prior to removal of the don't ask, don't tell), one for issues with a family care plan and one because his separation fell during the time of deployment (stop loss had been removed).    Three of those were chaptered out of the military prior to the unit returning.  Although, the soldiers within the ranks were not near as busy as the soldiers forward were and they still had their weekends and days off the majority of the time, I did not. 

As with any organization, the more you move up in the ranks, generally the more pay you receive, but also the less time off.  With this situation, since it's more of a job description than a promotion, my pay stayed the same, but more hours significantly increased.  We managed to turn in over $1 million in excess materials that had been sitting in connexs since two deployments prior, we cleaned and reorganized offices, scrubbed over 45 barracks room top to bottom, we worked with other spouses to decorate for the soldiers return and planned the redeployment ceremonies and reintegration.  Additionally, I was able to get three families out on emergency leave (overseas the unit often authorizes to pay for family members to return home on emergency leave, although it is a case-by-case basis) and found myself sitting in many briefings and meetings on behalf of the rear d CSM (Command Sergeant Major).  Although most of the spouses were really helpful and understood that I was also a spouse with my husband deployed, I did have one that provided more challenges than the rest did combined - from getting in altercations with people in her housing unit on post to walking into one of the bank's on post and slapping one of the workers. 

When the soldiers returned, the job wasn't over.  Although I knew we weren't going to be able to take leave immediately after my husband returned, we were promised a few four day weekends.  There wasn't one that didn't have some kind of interruption - from a soldier being arrested for domestic violence to an IG complaint coming down the pipe.  I know more days than my husband was irritated because as with all soldiers they want to spend time with their significant other when they redeploy, but that didn't keep my phone from ringing every time we sat down to eat or keep me from getting called in at all hours of the night. 

Although, I understood that most soldiers that were on rear d did spend most of their time doing stuff other than work and I saw many of them who had been too 'hurt' to deploy and then would be called in to pick them up because they had been out partying, but for the rear d leadership - my eyes were opened and I definitely have a lot of respect for those that are put in that position.  I learned more about everything general Army related in that eight month time frame than I did the rest of the time I was in the military.