When the Military wants to screw you over

They continue to pay you until your contract is up and then demand the money back 3 years later. 

Yeah that is the short version. 

While M was inside he continued to get paid even though he should not have been. We talked to the lawyer, we contacted the Air Force. We talked to everyone we could but he continued to get paid. Once his contract was up, the payments stopped. We threw our hands up and said mkay, we did everything we could to figure it out. We heard nothing. 

Fast forward to M being home for 2 years and off contract for 3 and now they want their money back. And not just the money they paid, but they have tacked on 3% interest for the past 3 years. They have had his contact information for 3 years! And suddenly they expect him to pay a lump sum of 55,000 or 1500 every month for the next 3 years. 

He makes 23,000 a year. After his expenses he has less than $500 left every month. He still lives with us because he can't afford a house or apartment. 

Gotta love the government. When they want to screw you they do it in a big way.

Small Miracles

 M has been seeing a girl he met online. He really likes her. Told us she is the coolest person he has ever met! His biggest worry (And ours) was what would happen when he tells her. He had thought he might wait because she is only in the area until Thanksgiving before heading home 4 states away and going back to college in another state. J suggested though that if M was going to have a long distance relationship it would be better that he told her now instead of waiting until they were too far away to talk in person. 

Smart boy that J. 

He was right of course. Thinking about it, it made sense. M really likes her and would like to continue to talk to her and potentially date. 

They spent the day together yesterday and when they came back to her car, he told her. Telling her that he would totally understand if she wanted him to leave and never see him again and offering to answer any questions she had. Surprisingly she told him she did not want him to leave and that she wanted to keep dating! 

M was terrified to tell her. This was the best possible outcome! 

He made sure he told her in a public place where she could leave if she wanted to and she decided to stay. she really is a cool girl. I look forward to meeting her! 

Assholes and Consequences

 M woke up yesterday morning to a post on FB from someone he knew in high school. She had shared a screenshot of a local person who they had gone to high school with on the registry. "Just making sure everyone is aware" 

A rude wake up call and a bit disconcerting for M. 

He can never get away from the label and will always be branded as an SO. Worse than a murderer. The lowest of the low. He will always be persecuted for a mistake he made when he was alone and tempted by someone who he thought was a legal aged girl. He will never be able to have an easy/normal relationship without having to explain himself. 

His life is forever changed. 

Two steps forward One step back

 Ms PO stopped by this morning. 8:30 AM. 

Lovely. 

Half the house is not even up yet, including M. She brings another PO with her. Apparently this will be Ms new PO. 

Wonderful. 

This new PO seems to be even more of a stickler. 

Great.

His Roku TV that had been approved my his original PO is not approved by the new PO because it has YouTube on it. So back to the drawing board. We don't have cable. 

Peeing in a cup is apparently a monthly thing. 

Surprise.

His polygraph is next week. I know he is stressed about it. 

6 months. There is only 6 months left. Then we can be done with this stupidity. 

And it's a No

 The news is not good. 

"They believe that I have not served enough time. "continued confinement is the most appropriate  disposition at this time." "the board determined that parole approval would depreciate the seriousness of my confining offenses.' "

Well that sucks. 

They are recommending Mandatory Supervised Release (MSR) at his minimum release date which will be next April.  I guess we will find out what that all means soon. 

Sigh

Justice is Served?

 MJs parole hearing did not go as we would have liked. Nor did it go in the favor of 4 other SOs in his pod. He had not even sat back down to wait for the verdict before they called him back in to decline. Same with the other 4. 

However they did grant parole to someone who had been in for less than a year and had committed murder. 

Justice? 

Parole Hearing

 MJ has a parole hearing today. This is the first step to him coming home potentially this spring. Which means it is all becoming real what we will be faced with living with him being on the registry. The impact on our lives is becoming more and more real. 

I have spent the last few months trying to remove myself from it all. At least for a little while. To try to live a semi normal life with Hubby working nights and trying to work through a pandemic and being alone most of the time. It is all mentally draining and thinking about the impact of when MJ comes home is just more than I can/could bear. 

A couple of weeks ago MJ asked me to contact the local police and try to get a letter confirming that he could legally live here. My bubble of mental wellness has been officially broken. It is all real again. The talks with family discussing it all have begun again. Because family who told us they were supportive suddenly are not. The stress of making sure our business is not connected in anyway with our home address. The new worry that the neighborhood will be notified that an SO is living here. 

This comment on a forum struck me.

"Sorry you’re going through this but also thank you for not kicking out your kid and disowning him. I’ve seen that happen to many times to younger people." 

It truly made me sad. No matter how difficult this all is, I could not imagine disowning him or not allowing him to live here. Yes this is going to be incredibly hard. Especially if the whole neighborhood finds out. But we will get through this. We will get through this together. Yes family and friends may decide they do not want to be a part of our lives anymore. That will be hard. But not supporting our son would be even harder. 

He did something incredibly stupid. But if God can still love him and forgive him then who I am to judge him? It is not my place to judge. I do not have the authority to judge a person for mistakes and sins. The charge I have been given is to love and forgive. 

And that is what I intend to do. 

Friendships

 I had an interesting conversation with M last night. (He calls every couple of weeks now) We were talking about his parole hearing in October when we were interrupted by someone talking to him and him laughing and telling them he was talking to his mom, with the next comment being "You are loved here".

What an odd thing to hear about other inmates and also just to hear him laugh. He told me there is more camaraderie in prison then being in the actual military. He said "Believe it or not I have made friends here." 

The combination of him telling me I am loved by other inmates and that he has friends there is a bit sad. I think. I am really not sure how I feel about it. He obviously feels close enough to these other men to tell them of his home life and to create bonds with them. Granted these bonds are created because of close quarters and a commonality of being in prison for similar actions. 

I am grateful that he does not seem to have changed as far as him being always upbeat. He has always been the one child who never had any problem making friends. However while he was in the military he did seem to have a hard time. He had a few close friends that he made after he was under investigation but he never mentioned being close to anyone else. I am not sure why that was. I always hear of the military being a brotherhood but somehow my son who never had any problem at all making friends out of the military had a difficult time with it while in. 

Knowing how my son is such a social creature it somehow makes me wonder if that is why he looked at what he did. (I know I can make all kinds of excuses for him and there really is no excuse. But I have always been the type of person to try to figure out what makes people do what they do and why they are the way they are. ) I know that when I get bored I tend to get curious about random things. M has always been closest like me. Knowing him the way I do I has been trying to figure out why. Maybe I will never know. I honestly don't think he even knows why he did it. 

Boredom will drive us to do things and try things we would not have normally. 

Attempting to live

It has been a year since we found out what M was being investigated for. 8 months since he was incarcerated. 4 months since the Covid hell took a massive bite out of our business. 

To be honest the past couple of years have just been Hell. 

Don't get me wrong, there have been bright spots. But overall it is just shit. But lets discuss the bright spots as a reminder to myself lest I become ungrateful.

We have somehow been able to pay all of the bills.  Yes Hubby is working nights at Hell and somehow I was able to get unemployment but I can't rule out Gods hand in that.

M is still staying upbeat and enjoys working in the wood shop. He has always been the upbeat child, much like myself. So it is hard to keep him down for long.

R and his wife are getting along and making the marriage work. Considering he thought they would be divorced by now this is a good thing. 

J has a couple of groups of friends that are helping him through this. As much as he does not open up his friends help.

I can see God in our lives and I do try my best to be grateful. Right now it is harder than ever. This pandemic is causing an incredible amount of stress in our lives. (Yes I know we are not alone in that) Compounded with the stress of a child in prison and Hubby working nights...well...the tears comes in waves. We can go days without a thought and then it all slams home fresh again. 

I know I know we will get through all of this. But life will never be the same. When M comes home the stress begins again because of the restrictions of the list. 

For now we are just trying to survive. I guess that is really all that we can do. 

Survive

Avoidance

6 1/2 months so far.
April 2022 is his expected release date with good behavior.
It seems like forever.
I have started avoiding everything to do his offense. I stopped going to the support groups. I stopped reading articles. I just can't anymore.
I can't read about people who are going through the trials of the list anymore. The people who come onto the groups to harass and berate them for trying to live some semblance of a normal life.  The parents like us who can't believe what their child has done. I just can't.
I know so much now and I know it is just the tip of the iceberg. We have avoided telling M what is in store for him when he comes home. He is so naive. I love that about him. And he does not need to know how his life will change.
He thinks he will live with us for a short time before getting an apartment.
He thinks getting a job will be easy.
He asked about going to comic cons. I did not have the heart to tell him it was no longer his choice.
He does not know that he will not be able to go to his children's schools when he has them or that they may even try to keep him from the hospital when they are born.
He does not know that the list will make him a pariah and that society will not accept him as a good person. That he will forever be labeled as a terrible human being.
So far prison does not seem to have changed him too much, but I fear that the list will.
I have avoided telling him what he is in for.
I have to step back and leave that all for when he comes home.
I know I won't be able to avoid it completely, it's our life now, but I can't go to the groups daily anymore.
It is going to be a long 2 years.

He Called!

Yesterday we were all wondering how he is getting along and then last night he called and we got to talk for half an hour! We got to hear how things are at the brig.
His first comment was it is like a "daycare". The food is surprisingly good. He said they had pizza on the weekend and hamburgers the night before. You are required to attend each meal, unlike county where you could just sleep through them. But you get enough food so that you are not hungry throughout the day. With him being a picky eater we were a bit concerned about what he would actually eat. He is currently in medium security in the welcome area until they determine that he is safe and can be placed in minimum and a "permanent" cell. They have movies on the weekends and he has the "freedom" to go to his appointments without being shackled and can just walk there. They have more free time and there are books in the common area so if he needs something to read he is set. There is a library as well as classes and jobs, which he will be able to take part in once he is placed.
They are much more strict about mail and phone calls. All addresses have to be preapproved as well as all books we send him. I have to send him a list of books so that he can get them approved. Once I figure out how to send him money via money order he can actually purchase a tablet and receive email. He said he is really "lucky" in that this is the first and only brig to allow tablets and email. He also said that with good behavior he could potentially purchase a PSP.
He is planning for when he can come home. I worry about that. I can only hope he can stay as upbeat once he is living on the list as he is right now being in prison. Because the list is it's own prison.

More waiting

M has been at Charleston for over 10 days now. The waiting for a phone call or letter is almost unbearable. The not knowing how he is doing, what his life is like there, if he is ok, is heart wrenching.
We are trying to get back to some semblance of real life. Although it is made more difficult because hubby is still working nights to help with the bills. We have socialized a little bit in the last couple of weeks. The question of how is M doing in the Air Force was of course asked. And we acted like all was well. It is harder meeting with friends since they do not know. One friend of mine is persistent in asking what is going on since she knows things are not great and she guessed accurately that something is going on with M, she is retired military. Funny not funny, she was actually a prison guard for a few years. I think I will tell her at least some of it. I trust her.
Trust is key, of course. Knowing who to trust is much more difficult.
We have not been to church in months. It is hard when hubby has been working overtime on Saturdays and sleeps until 2 on Sunday. I miss church. Tuesdays small group helps but it can only do so much when there are usually 6 kids running chaos through the house while we try to talk.
There are times when I feel Him more. And now does not seem to be one of them. Maybe it is the winter blahs getting to me along with everything else.
The new normal sucks.

Transfer

M is being transferred to the Brig today. It is a 10 hour drive South if you are driving straight through. Somehow I doubt the government prison system will drive him South all nice and casual. I suspect it will take a few days.
I wish I knew.
He called us almost every day this past week. So we had plenty of time to talk to him. He had gotten into a "phone monopoly". He says he will explain about it another time. It gave us time to talk but I am sorry for those who did not get a chance to talk to their families because of it, if that were the case. I doubt he will be able to call anytime soon.
Hope and prayers right now. Praying for safe travels for M.

Naval Consolidated Brig - Charleston

That is where he will be moving to next week.
Well at least he is staying on the East coast.
Hopefully he will be able to settle in and earn some days off his time with a job and therapy and hopefully a new skill.
Now comes the research in finding out how to get him money for phone calls and the commissary. It does not seem  as cut and dried as the state prison.
This really sucks. I found a forum for families of those incarcerated. Hopefully I can get more information there.
I am not sure what I am looking for right now. What am I supposed to be feeling? I feel like I have this constant cloud over my head. Even when good thing happen, I feel like it is just not enough. How much good is enough to make the cloud dissipate?

3 calls and another letter

He called 3 days in a row! Incredible! The first time he called I am embarrassed to say I was incredibly excited.
We only had a couple of minutes before he was called away for some sort of lock down. I did pretty well, I did not cry until I hung up the phone. I am pretty proud of myself. I am a crier, big time. So I was convinced the first time I heard his voice I would lose it. The main thing he said "It sucks".
He sounded so down I just wanted to hug him. It is a terrible thing when you can't hug your baby.
I was surprised when he called again the next day. Hubby got to talk to him because I was working. He felt so bad when he found out his Dad had to pick up a night job to help pay the lawyer bills. Hubby just told him he will have to be the one to take care of us in our old age. He seemed in better spirits and asked for money for the commissary which they can visit on Sundays. Since he is confined in a pretrial area until he goes to his "permanent" confinement, he gets limited use of the common area.
Then he called a third time! This time to talk to me. We had asked him for a list of books so that we can have them sent via Amazon. He has always been a voracious reader. He had already read three books in the first few days. He said getting books is like doing a drug deal. You have to "buy" them with other books or food from the commissary.
I have been pleasantly surprised at the cost of the calls. I had read horror stories of $1-3 a minute, so I put $15 in his phone account thinking I would have to refill it after each phone call. Instead we have had 3 calls and it has cost less than $3.
We received a letter today as well. He told us what he was telling others as he was advised to not say why he is really in. His story is that he was carrying a pound of weed in his trunk with scales and baggies onto base and a drug sniffing dog "sat" on his car. It seems to be going over well. Funny thing is he does not even seem realize how much actual pot a pound is!
He is getting along well with the older men and seems to be doing ok.
If the amount of letters and calls seems like a lot, it probably is for most people. We have always been a very close family. He says he plans on calling every couple of days if possible to keep in touch. This is our boy.
This is how we raised him.
He is not a monster.

God speaking?

There is something that I have started to feel pretty strongly about. This is a recent feeling and one that today I am feeling stronger than ever. I know where it is coming from but I have not figured out how to actually act on it.
Since we discovered what M was being investigated for I joined a few groups for support for families and actual offenders. What is coming to light to me is the harassment and anger that is directed to those who are on the List. The mean and nasty comments on posts is distressing to me. Comments wishing SOs go to hell and that God does not love them and they should be castrated. The comments and general feeling of society is disheartening.
I do admit that before I knew M would be on the registry we knew about it and worried about all of the molesters and rapists who were on it and if they would live close to us and our children. Little did I know what the List really was. A way to ostracize a group of people who had served their time and were just trying to get back to living a normal life. SO's are looked upon as lepers to society, evil doers who should not be allowed to actually live.
What has really surprised me is those who profess to be Christians kicking SO's out of church. Christians who villainize and attack people on the list all in the name of God.
How is this of God?
It is not. That is what I am coming to realize. This is NOT of God.
One of the 10 commandments is to love your neighbor. One of the most used words in the New Testament is Love. There are more instances of the word Love than the word Sin. God commands us to love one another. Jesus spent more time with sinners than saints. And who among us is a saint?
Jesus was also a big proponent of forgiveness. Who needs to be forgiven? Sinners. Forgiveness is granted to those who profess their sins and ask for forgiveness and sin no more. The percentage of SO's who are on the list that actually reoffend is 5-15% according to most studies.
Sex offenders should be treated as any other sinner who is trying to sin no more. Not as a leper to society who should never be seen or heard. Who should be tortured and tormented just for living. This is where I feel God speaking to me. There are many organizations that are trying to get rid of the registry. (I have them listed on my side bar) But so far I have not found a faith based group or organization that is willing to show love and support and no judgement. I am not sure what this means for me. But it is something I am feeling in my heart that there needs to be. People who are on the list deserve to be loved and cared for just as much as those who were victimized.
People make mistakes.
People deserve forgiveness.
Those who are without sin cast the first stone.

About Court Martials

When this whole process started I tried to find out everything that I could about court martials and what to expect. I found very basic information but nothing to really help me know what to expect. So let me see if I can detail a bit of what it was like. Hopefully this will help someone who was in our same situation.
First, M plead guilty and had a plea deal with prosecution, so we did not have a full trial with witness', we had a judge only. His was a Summary Court Martial with a military judge presiding.
Because it was a guilty plea the judge had to determine that M knew he was guilty and that he was actually guilty.
The judge had M read from the Statement of Fact, after he read each section silently he would look us at the judge and the judge would confirm that he understood what he read and that he admitted to it. ( The lawyers said that he would have to read this outloud which is why they did not want us in the room to hear it. This judge obviously saw us sitting in the room and decided that was not necessary.) The judge gave definitions and asked M if he agreed with them and understood them and had M state how he had broken the law.
This was a very long process. After it was finished the judge accepted the guilty plea and we went into the sentencing phase.
The prosecution wanted a Statement of Intent read into the court records. Our lawyers objected as it was already in evidence and it did not need to be read out loud. The prosecution won that battle. The Statement of Intent was from the investigator and contained evidence that our lawyers had gotten removed from the Statement of Fact as images and videos that M had never looked at but were downloaded when he synced up with Dropbox. This was read into the transcript, I believe the prosecutor wanted us, the family, to hear it whether all of it was true or not.
I admit it was horrifying. That people look at that stuff is terrible. However because M was adamant that he did not look at or have any interest in the most damning of the images we are a bit reassured. A bit.
Our character witness' were next. Most were done by phone call. He had two witness' from the military, a Staff Sergeant and a Master Sergeant. After our lawyers questioned the witness' the prosecution did and she was vicious, bringing up evidence from the Statement of Intent which were not really fact. Our lawyers objected and overruled until she kept going at it and the judge said that's enough. The next witness was one of M's Boy Scout leaders and then my husband, his Dad. The did not cross examine my husband, the lawyers said it was bad form to cross family members.
Our lawyers submitted character letters and photos and commendations after the witness'. Then M had a statement that he had written asking for forgiveness and expressing regret and apologizing to anyone he may have hurt.
Then it was time for final statements. The prosecution went first, she said a few things that were objected to, then our guy went. This went back and forth a couple of times.
And then it was over. The judge called for deliberations and we were at rest.
It was already 3 o'clock at this point but they wanted to finish it all that day so they decided to call a recess instead of starting again in the morning.
This waiting...it was really really hard.
We went to get food but no one could really eat. We went back and waited in a conference room until they called us back into the courtroom. It was 3 hours later.
The sentencing was very short, probably 15 minutes. The judge had everyone stand and pronounced a sentence of 4 years, a reduction in rank to E1, the Registry and dishonorable discharge. The plea deal was for 3 years so it was reduced to that. And then it was over.
Our lawyers immediately grabbed us all together in the conference room so that we could have time together and so that M could sign final papers. (The prosecution had told us we would not have time together afterwards) This was when the lawyers told us about time off for good behavior and for counseling etc. So in reality he could potentially only be confined for 2 years.
This time after was so important for us. Hubby had to go back to M's apartment to get civilian clothes for the state prison since they had not told him to bring any and they did not want him going to state prison as military. So we had longer than we thought. We had time to talk, he had time to call his older brother who could not be there. And we had a chance to hug and cry and breath.
We were told that he would be shackled and taken away. Fortunately they did not shackle him when they took him away. It may be because he was security forces and everyone knew him. But I am grateful.
Then we all went back to M's apartment and finished off his alcohol.

Discovering the unfairness of it all

I could not sleep last night.
I learned something about the registry yesterday and I am just stunned in disbelief. M's crime took place in Delaware, there he would be required to register for 15 years. If he had done the crime in our home state of Kentucky he would be required to register for 10 years. But here is the kicker, Kentucky requires all out of state offenders to register for LIFE! So when he comes home to be with his support system he will have to register for life instead of 10 or 15 years.
How is that a fair system? How is that NOT punishing someone for coming home?
Unreal.

Someone asked me yesterday if I saw registrants differently now being so close to it. I was surprised that my answer was yes. You don't know someone else's pain until you experience it yourself. I had no idea that the registry encompasses EVERYTHING the law deems a sex crime. So a 12 year old who moons someone is on the registry along with someone who peed against a wall in public, along with someone who raped a minor. Everyone of those people is labeled with the sex offender red letter. The registry is out of control. It should only be for those who have done a violent crime or reoffenders.

There are groups working towards sensible registry laws. I have included links on the sidebar of the blog. I think the laws need to change.