Carrie Elizabeth Johnson, Black American Paralegal Student | InnovativeLegal, LLC. | Non-Attorney | Addressing Time in Service

2003 AIT Graduating Class where I did sing the National Anthem!

California National Guard (2001-2004) | Missouri National Guard (2004-2005) | Army Reserves (2005-2007)

Blog Post Written By: Carrie Elizabeth Johnson | Paralegal Student | Sole Owner of InnovativeLegal, LLC. (Closed California Business)| Sole Parent of Skylar | Non-Attorney | Non-Famous Person | Not-A-Reality Tv Person | Not-An-Actor | Born a Female 

2003 AIT Graduating Class where I did sing the National Anthem!

She was just 17: Addressing Time in Service

            She was only 17 years of age when Carrie Elizabeth Johnson first met SFC Petriece Culberson, a Black American female recruiter for the California National Guard. Redlands East Valley High School, located in Redlands, California authorized recruiters from different military branches of service to set up information tables on school premises that were looking to recruit new enlistees. During normal school hours, Ms. Johnson was one of several teenagers making an inquiry at Recruiter Culberson’s information table on her lunch break. Ms. Johnson came from a single-parent household and was the last school-aged child living up under her mother’s roof in Redlands, California. However, her mother did not allow her to get a job while she was still in high school. Carrie was under the impression that based on her mother’s experiences with her other children that came from a different father than her; was that having a job while still in high school would somehow affect her studies. Ms. Johnson debunked her mother’s unspoken theory early on while under Parkway School District that she clearly was not getting the grades to get into Harvard Law School as she had once said as a child. Her grades in Redlands Unified School District were also less than desirable grades for immediate acceptance into the Cal State Universities or USC. In logical terms, Carrie was only in the 11^th grade and looking toward her future upon graduating high school. Eager to start making her own money, she was persuaded by the $3,000 dollar sign-on bonus that was being offered to new enlistees to join the California National Guard with the plans of using those funds towards a car for her senior year of high school. Shortly after speaking with Recruiter Petriece Culberson about the terms of the contractual agreement, Ms. Johnson went home to present the idea to her mother for her mother’s parental consent.

2003 AIT Graduating Class where I did sing the National Anthem!

            There were a few conversations between her, her mother, and the recruiter about the terms of the contractual agreement which consisted of being paid for one weekend per month and two weeks of paid training out of the year. Ms. Johnson does admit to a lack of research on her part when it came to weighing the pros and cons of signing her contract as well as a lack of questions she would not have known back then to ask, before signing her contract. She felt that her mother failed to parent her when it came down to asking her what her underlying motives were to sign up to join the California National Guard in the first place. The recruiter came over to her mother’s Redlands, California apartment to schedule ASVAB testing and the results came back in November 2001, before Ms. Johnson officially signed her California National Guard contractual agreement on December 17, 2001. Ms. Johnson initially tested in as a 73C Finance Specialist and was assigned to drill at a small finance unit, located in Compton, California where she officially started paying taxes as a U.S. natural-born citizen at the age of 17. It was a New Year in 2002 and Ms. Johnson was still balancing her studies at Redlands East Valley High School and doing her weekend drills, before completing her junior year of high school in June 2002. Her mother drove her out to Los Angeles MEPS Station just a few days before, Ms. Johnson was put on an “all-expenses-paid” plane to Fort Jackson, South Carolina to complete the first portion of her training which was Basic Combat Training, during her summer vacation. Like on active duty, Ms. Johnson was being paid on the 1^st and the 15^th of each month that she was in Basic Combat Training. Somehow, Carrie’s mother was short on the rent and got a hold of the training facility to speak with Ms. Johnson over the phone about needing to get access to her checkbook to pay the rent. Her mother gave her this sob story over the phone and played on her gullible side but ultimately Ms. Johnson gave her mother permission to use some of the money from her personal checking account to pay the rent. As a result, Ms. Johnson did not have enough money at the end of the summer to purchase a car for her senior year of high school. Throughout Ms. Johnson’s training in 2002, she was hospitalized in Fort Jackson, South Carolina for exhaustion and dehydration due to initial training shocking her body and had never really experienced something quite like a drill sergeant's psychological abuse to the point she never had a menstrual cycle the entire summer that she was in boot camp. As part of her exiting exam, Ms. Johnson needed to pass a physical fitness test (PT Test) at the end of Basic Combat Training and she failed short on her 2-mile run. Her training facility got ahold of her high school to inform them that she was going to be one week late for her senior year of high school to complete some additional remedial fitness training to meet her time on the 2-mile run. Ms. Johnson barely passed and eventually graduated from Basic Combat Training on September 12, 2002. There were some exchanges of contact information with two black females that she could remember that she kept in contact with after graduation. One of the females, named Onika (Astrological Sign Unknown) that was from the original State of Connecticut and the other female from the original State of Ohio, named Nicole Nelson (non-famous person with the Astrological Sign of Aries & Black Female Liar) were both individuals that Ms. Johnson met in training, before meeting her baby daddy (not my son and neither is his kids that he has by other females that I did not know & was never friends with) in October 2004. The method by which Ms. Johnson would reach out to these black females through communication was either over the phone or through handwritten letters. There was a lack of reciprocity on these two individuals’ part when it came to taking the time to nurture and develop a friendship, after boot camp Ms. Johnson ultimately knew very little about them and could go either decades or even years without speaking to either of these individuals. Eventually, Ms. Johnson was put back on a plane from Fort Jackson, South Carolina to Redlands, California to finish her senior year of high school.

2003 AIT Graduating Class where I did sing the National Anthem!

            Ms. Johnson returned to high school for her senior year with a renewed sense of self-confidence that she probably had not shown students in previous years. Still fulfilling her California National Guard one weekend per month and attending high school, the first three years of her contract flew by relativity quickly. She remembers completing her two weeks of paid annual training in San Luis Obispo, California during the time frame of 2002-2004 with all travel and lodging expenses being paid by the California National Guard. On June 11, 2003, Ms. Johnson graduated from Redlands East High School, located in Redlands, California at the age of 18. At the very least, Ms. Johnson probably had two weeks of time before she was put back on a plane from Los Angeles to Fort Jackson, South Carolina to finish the second portion of her training which was called Advanced Individual Training (AIT) in the summer of 2003. Her advanced individual training in Finance School focused on military pay along with physical fitness still being secondary training as part of the graduating requirement. Unlike Basic Combat Training which did not allow for passes off-site, Ms. Johnson was given weekend passes to go off-base with other trainees. Among students, faculty, and parents of the graduating class, Ms. Johnson gave a solo performance singing the National Anthem before receiving her diploma on August 15, 2003. Like boot camp, Ms. Johnson exchanged her personal home contact information with another trainee that was of a different branch of service, named Rashanna Rogers (non-famous person state she was a Lying Libra Astrological Sign) that was believed to be on her way to a permanent duty station in New York in 2003. Rashanna Rogers (non-famous person) was the only black American female that she had met in AIT training that Ms. Johnson gave her mother’s Redlands, California home address before returning to Redlands, California in August 2003. Outside of Advanced Individual Training, the only history that Ms. Johnson and Rashanna Rogers (a non-famous person & Black Female liar who lied to Social Services claimed she was the sign of Libra & not my daughter's godmother and no I did not believe in that Italian garbage that is not my culture & she never met my kid before past facebook posts just like scum Italian racist lawyers that I did not know either & never introduced my daughter, family or friends too either in person that California & Judicial Complaints will be filed against!) had was phone history and she was an individual with no kids that Ms. Johnson met, prior to meeting her baby daddy in October 2004. Since Ms. Johnson was a split-op, she considered herself to be more civilianized than other service members and it showed in her behavior that outside of training and weekend drills, there was never any desire to hang out with other service members on her personal time or even want to see them in-person after training ended. Ms. Johnson was put back on a plane to her mother’s Redlands, California apartment in August 2003.

2003 AIT Graduating Class where I did sing the National Anthem!

            Ms. Johnson was now already two years into her California National Guard contractual agreement and was eager to find civilian full-time employment in September 2003. She put in a phone call to someone that she at that time considered to be a friend, named Shanta Hill-Oluoma (a non-famous person) that had a car and asked her if they could look for jobs together. Going into the fall of 2003, Ms. Johnson was offered a position at Black Angus Steakhouse on the hospitality lane in San Bernardino, California, as a Front Desk Hostess & Food Runner. It was her first civilian job, upon graduating from both high school and Advanced Individual Training (AIT). She remembers casting crew members from the hit tv show CSI Las Vegas coming into her restaurant and asking her to come down to Pharoah’s Lost Kingdom Theme Park to be a paid background tv extra. She was always open to making some extra money since Carrie was receiving an E-4 weekend drill pay and $8.00 dollars per hour on a 40-hour work week at Black Angus Steakhouse Restaurant. By that time, she had already purchased her own vehicle that did not have a car note and accepted the opportunity to get paid as a background tv extra. The episode was titled, “Turn of the Screws” and was shot a few months prior to its original airdate of May 6, 2004. Shortly after filming Season 4, Episode 21, Ms. Johnson suffered severe injuries from a car accident in Yucaipa, California while she was on her way to register for school at Crafton Hills Community College in 2004. Carrie had very little recovery time and was still required to show up for work at both Black Angus Steakhouse and weekend drills with the California National Guard. Her stay with Black Angus was not long before she put in a two weeks notice to relocate back to the State of Missouri for a while and to check up on her elderly grandmother. It was required by the California National Guard to have an address to where she would be staying for service orders to be mailed out on where to report for her weekend drills. As a classified 73C Finance Specialist, the State of California and Missouri placed Ms. Johnson with the 1137^th Military Police Unit out of Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. During her weekend drills, Ms. Johnson did not serve in the capacity of a military police officer but was required to show up for weekend drills there. Throughout K-12, Ms. Johnson never expressed any interest in becoming a police officer at all. She did not drill long with the MP Company, before being placed on active-duty service work orders at the downtown Robert A. Young Federal Building MEPS Station. Once Ms. Johnson was on Title 32 active-duty orders, she was no longer required to report to drill on the weekends.

2003 AIT Graduating Class where I did sing the National Anthem!

            What reflects on her military transcripts, as a 71L/42L (administrative specialist) was to provide administrative support to four National Guard Guidance Counselors inside of the downtown St. Louis MEPS Station. Her reporting supervisors were two men on their way out for retirement by the name of SFC McCarthy and SFC Charles. SFC Vega was still working in the office at the time SFC McCarthy was retiring and being replaced by SFC Alvin Sutton. Working full-time, Monday through Friday from 9am-5pm, she overcame her transportation barrier threw full-time employment. Ms. Johnson was without a (POV) personal vehicle for the entire summer before she established 90 days’ worth of paystubs to take out her first car loan with AmeriCredit, located in Fort Worth, Texas. Her first car loan did not require a cosigner but additional personal references in which she listed seven names on her loan application that were approved to purchase a dark green hatchback 2001 Ford Focus on September 18, 2004. Her first car payment was due on November 2, 2004, with a monthly car payment of $218.11 that did not include car insurance. Her active-duty orders ended on September 29, 2004, and SFC Alvin Sutton was unable to extend the orders, but they were going to put Ms. Johnson on new orders providing administrative support to a National Guard recruiting office in St. Louis, Missouri, under a staff sergeant nicknamed “Campbell’s Soup”. After she purchased her vehicle, Ms. Johnson met the baby daddy in October 2004 and eventually got pregnant in St. Louis, Missouri the fall of 2004 with an expected delivery date of summer August 2005. Ms. Johnson does admit it was a distractive fall of 2004 in which she neglected her weekend drill obligations with the Missouri National Guard which resulted in her being discharged under “honorable conditions” due to unsatisfactory attendance. When she missed three-weekend drills in a row, the National Guard automatically starts to discharge paperwork and sever ties immediately. The next couple of years for Ms. Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri was “doom and gloomy”, especially throughout her entire pregnancy that she experienced alone. Her baby daddy’s typical behavior which will be outlined in a more detailed FBI complaint was normally (MIA) missing in action and rarely could she get ahold of him and most definitely could not depend on him for anything. Although Ms. Johnson’s baby daddy was of the astrological sign of “Virgo”, she stands firm that he is neither a reflection nor a mirror of her character. Her baby daddy is an extension of his parents’ character in which his actions may or may not be an accurate reflection of their parenting or lack thereof in which he may have taken on his parent’s characteristics, personality traits, or behavior as well as any other external individuals that may have an influence on his personal life choices and decision making. Carrie was never a third party to anything that her baby daddy (a non-famous person with the  Astrological sign of Virgo that is not my son) was dealing with prior to her meeting him that she was unaware of until months into her pregnancy, as they were never in a relationship, to begin with, and rarely saw each other during her pregnancy. At a certain time frame in 2005, regardless of if her baby daddy would have asked her to get an abortion, Ms. Johnson would have still proceeded with her first pregnancy anyway. Ms. Johnson was excited about her daughter’s arrival and preparing early into her pregnancy and most certainly wanted her daughter.

2002 Boot Camp in Fort Jackson, South Carolina!

            Finding work was extremely difficult for Carrie, after her separation from the Missouri National Guard in May 2005. She picked up work in retail as a part-time sales associate for both Wet Seal and Forever 21 in the St. Louis Galleria Mall she could not even pay her car note or credit cards and eventually quit both jobs during her pregnancy. She was living with her grandmother on her father’s side and attending all doctor’s appointments alone that were related to her pregnancy. Her baby daddy sat back and watched her ford focus get repossessed on July 7^th, 2005, without even attempting to offer to stop the repossession. She starts doing temp. work with Today’s Staffing on the southside of St. Louis, Missouri where she met her black female supervisor, Lashonda Duggar (a non-famous person & Today's Staffing Black Female Supervisor) that was like her shoulder to cry on throughout her pregnancy and was the only admittance (never allowed Barbara's children into to see my daughter's birth) into St. Mary’s Hospital to see her daughter’s birth. Carrie’s grandmother decided to sell her house and Ms. Johnson did some very brief couch surfing at some black female’s homes that she went to school with from either U-City or Parkway school district [Candace Echols/Tiffany Ford of Parkway School District], before going into a shelter for women with children or those female mothers expecting. The shelter was called, the Haven of Grace on Warren Street, and Ms. Johnson’s entry into that shelter was not out of a “domestic violence referral” dispute at all but because her grandmother simply putting her house up for sale. The Haven of Grace Shelter was located at 1225 Warren Street, St. Louis, Missouri 63106. Ms. Johnson has never experienced any “domestic violence” situation or dispute ever in her life and was never raised to be physically violent towards men ever. It was a personal choice to go into the shelter to get help with housing for herself with her daughter in her custody, not for the baby daddy to be included. Ms. Johnson’s grandmother gave her $2,000 dollars to buy an older burgundy Buick Skylark to drive around in, while the baby daddy sat back and did not contribute to anything. It was the only vehicle that Ms. Johnson did not work to purchase herself, with a total of 6 cars under her driving history 5 vehicles were purchased solely by Ms. Johnson threw full-time employment. Throughout Ms. Johnson’s time in Missouri from April 2004 to February 2007, she was still checking in on her mother who was still working at Wells Fargo Mortgage Company in San Bernardino, California, and just listening to her daughter’s phone conversations and said well I am still waiting on you to come back home which she considered being her Redlands, California apartment as being home at that point in time. Ms. Johnson goes on to give birth to her first child that was one week late, making it induced labor the baby daddy was aware of the hospital check-in date for delivery but he did not show up. In fact, his stalker-crazy first baby momma and her cousin, Lawanda showed up at the Haven of Grace Shelter to see what Carrie's daughter looked like before the baby daddy showed up two weeks later to see his daughter at the Haven of Grace. Ms. Johnson’s mother was not in attendance for her granddaughter’s birth, and she was aware of the induced labor delivery date, but she did not fly into Missouri for her granddaughter’s birth. Still to this day, Ms. Johnson’s mother has never disclosed how much money she really made in the mortgage industry.

2002 Boot Camp Year Book!

            While Ms. Johnson was on public assistance, Missouri Social Services established a $12.00 dollar monthly child support order on the baby daddy once a paternity test was verified in April 2006. Still living with her newborn at the Haven of Grace Shelter in November 2005, Ms. Johnson decided to re-enter the military service but this time under the Missouri Army Reserves Branch. She goes on to obtain her security license for employment at a local security company that eventually placed her on a Boeing contract as well as two residential senior citizen apartment complexes in the City of St. Louis. Ms. Johnson’s stay at the Haven of Grace Shelter ended with the owner, Diane asking for her to leave since she did not comply with their “savings agreement”. The alternative that Ms. Johnson took was taking some classes through St. Vincent DePaul in downtown Saint Louis to assist with move-in costs on her first studio apartment on the south side of St. Louis, Missouri, famously known as the 3^rd District. St. Vincent DePaul assisted with only the initial deposit and first month’s rent, along with a crib and bed. Ms. Johnson was working full-time as an overnight security guard and was the sole responsible party on her one-year lease agreement. Her apartment was located at 3148 Nebraska Ave., St. Louis, Missouri 63118. It was a less-than-desirable location that Ms. Johnson would have liked to have had to raise her daughter but unfortunately, that was all she could afford at that time on a minimum-wage job. She was reassigned on November 7, 2005, to the 6025^th Garrison Support Unit, located at 4301 Goodfellow Blvd., St. Louis, Missouri 63120 to finish up the remaining Missouri National Guard contractual agreement time but under the Army Reserves branch of service. It was required of Ms. Johnson to make up weekend drills that she had missed while under the Missouri National Guard (only) which was taking a vast majority of Ms. Johnson’s check to the point that it did not make logical sense to finish her Army Reserves contract. She could not even put gas in her car to get to her makeup drills as well as Ms. Johnson was taking her daughter to work with her on some of those makeup drills so it made more sense to get enrolled in college to improve her household personal finances. Ms. Johnson could no longer attend drills with the Missouri Army Reserves, and they processed her out based on attendance and discharged her on June 14, 2007. She received a reduction in rank from PFC to Private and received a discharge “under other than honorable conditions”. For her entire lease agreement in 2006, Ms. Johnson was not doing well in security based on difficulties with childcare for the overnight shifts eventually she ended up losing her job. She decided to enroll in the University of Phoenix where she initially declared a major in criminal justice administration fall of 2006. She got a false start in her first class and withdrew but in her second course, she attended a class once a week where social services were paying for childcare while she was in school. Ms. Johnson could not hold up her end to her lease agreement and she packed up her and her daughters’ belongings to head back to her mother’s Redlands, California apartment in February 2007. Throughout Ms. Johnson’s time living in the State of Missouri from April 2004 to February 2007, she did not do well in the Missouri employment sector at all and never made any real money, outside of her active-duty orders during that time. She would speak to both Trisha Bell and Shanta Hill-Oluoma over the phone; both of whom were the only two people that Ms. Johnson kept in contact with, after graduating high school to let them know she was on her way back to Redlands, California in February 2007. Ms. Johnson sold her Buick Skylark to purchase Greyhound bus tickets to Redlands, California where Shanta Hill-Oluoma picked Ms. Johnson and her daughter up from the bus station to drop them off at her mother’s Redlands apartment.

            Over the course of Ms. Johnson’s military service which started when she was only 17 years of age with the California National Guard, she fulfilled her one weekend per month and two weeks of annual paid training while she was with the California National Guard. Her behavior towards other servicemembers during her weekend drills at her finance unit in Compton, California was always professional, and she never had any interest in dating any service members from any branch of service. Her interactions while in the California National Guard were only attending the weekend drills or two weeks of annual paid training and never spent any personal time with anyone from her detachment outside of her required attendance. Under the California National Guard, Ms. Johnson did not have any issues with attendance and fulfilled her initial contractual agreement that she signed on December 17, 2001. It only became problematic for Ms. Johnson to show up to drill under the Missouri National Guard and Army Reserves contracts in which her daughter was never the distraction at all but the selfishness of individuals external to her household not wanting to take responsibility for their part in the creation of their daughter. As a result, Ms. Johnson relied on the assistance of social services to pay for childcare expenses for what was at the time the appropriate use of childcare for the sole purpose of either attending full-time employment or school to improve her household finances. Although Ms. Johnson’s small finance unit in Compton, California was activated for “Operation Iraqi Freedom” that had printed 18-month orders for her to be placed on that tour right after graduating from AIT, the unit decided not to proceed with sending her back in 2004. Making Ms. Johnson’s very short military history for both the State of California and Missouri is the only travel that Ms. Johnson has ever done in the United States for the sole purpose of military service and has never traveled outside of the United States before.

           Click on the link to download copies of Ms. Carrie Elizabeth Johnson's academic transcripts, Ms. Carrie E. Johnson's Academic Transcripts. Her military LES from DFAS can be viewed here and how to read military LES from DFAS are available for download. Check back for a Q & A follow-up post on her time in service. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. The paternity test/child support order can be viewed here. Her previous military awards can be viewed here. Her military records are to be corrected by Carrie Elizabeth Johnson herself since she knows her military history! Not her assumed biological dad (ex-navy background) or his father (Army background).