Drove all the way to Ft. Lewis yesterday to take care of some stuff. I called no less than three times - once Friday, twice yesterday morning - and asked questions about what I needed to do/bring vis-à-vis paperwork and other qualifications. Three times, three different answers but enough was similar that I thought we had it all. We got to the visitor's center to start and there were two Specialist's and a civilian officer. Again three different stories of what we needed and needed to do. Just...just make it easy, yeah? If someone is here for thing X, there should be an SOP for thing X. Never minding that this is the military and there are SOPs for how to shit in the woods so WTF.

Anyway, turns out you have to be there during the week and make an appointment. Information that no one gave me over the phone and would have saved us the two-hour drive.

funny part: the civilian officer was telling the two enlisted that my wife needed to show a specific ID badge from the VA. The one pointed at the big 8x11 sheet that was in front of each window with a blown up version of exactly that VA ID. The officer said no, not that one. Both of the enlisted looked at each other with confused looks on their faces.