PRELUDE:

From Steve’s Journal:

15 March, 1981

Today was our last "official” Sunday at Woodbridge Ward…I had my wisdom teeth removed Tuesday, due to a scheduling foul-up Monday.  My lower molars still ache some, but I am much improved…

25 March, 1981

At this writing Jeanne is still pregnant-now some two weeks overdue.  However, our prayers were answered, but in a way we never dreamed of.

By Tuesday last week, Jeanne was fit to be tied.  The two times she had felt contractions of any strength, she’d been turned away from the hospital because she hadn’t dilated at all…and though she had been given a blessing two weeks previous that all would be well, and that the child would be born normally and would (in effect) come while still under the medical “umbrella” of the Army, she was panicky.  My release date was only two days away (Thursday, March 19^th), and we were set to load up the truck Saturday, and fly out Monday!  There seemed to be nowhere to turn…

As always, our Father had things well in hand.  On that Tuesday (March 17^th), Nancy Richardson called Jeanne.  She (Nancy) had been fuming all day that the Army couldn’t cover us after my separation, and finally called a friend who worked in Military Personnel  to see if something couldn’t be done.  The friend recollected that there was a regulation which provided for short-term extensions for “humanitarian reasons”.  Jeanne and I thought it a long shot, but we gave it a whirl.

The next morning (Wednesday) on the way up to my office I checked out a copy of the regulation, AR600-201(para 3).  I read it thoroughly, but it appeared that it applied to Regular Army types, not Active Duty Reservists like me.  I was about to give up when my boss, Colonel Boone, appeared at the door of my office and inquired as to the status of the baby.  When I told him “no progress”, he asked if I was certain there was no way I could extend.  I reported our efforts to apply the AR 600-201 clause to our situation.  He instructed me to make him a copy and sit tight, he’d see something was done.  I found out later he’d gone down to personnel and told them to “get Lt. Lambson extended…whatever needs to be done!”

Captain Biersack, the pretty staff chief in Military Personnel, spent most of the day checking out our options.  A mother herself, she was extremely empathetic.  When she called me at 3:00 p.m., however, she did ask if I got a kick out of seeing her office in a state of panic.  She instructed me to go home and prepare a form letter and attach some personal papers to it.  I would also have to get a letter from Jeanne’s doctor verifying her circumstances.  All of this, incidentally, was to be accomplished under a completely different regulation than we began with.

The next morning Jeanne and I went right to the hospital to get the letter from Dr. Beetner.  I had talked to him, and he had written it Wednesday night, and promised that the secretary would type it up the first thing Thursday morning.

We arrived at 8:00 a.m. and proceeded to wait about 1.5 hours for Jeanne to see an obstetrician (Dr. Beetner wanted a second opinion).  Meantime, I asked the receptionist if the secretary had typed the letter.  She called back to the secretary’s desk and was informed that the letter was back there, but had not been typed, and that another project had taken precedence; no, she (the secretary) did not know when it would be typed…so we sat and waited.

At 11:00, Jeanne caught Dr. Beetner and inquired about the letter.  He checked, said it had been typed, and only needed to be signed by a Colonel in charge of such things.  We went over to that office and had the letter in hand by 11:15.

We sped to the Pentagon and took the letter to Mrs. Robinson of the Military Personnel Office there.  She had us compose, type, and sign a letter there, which took about 45 minutes, and then said that was it…she’d already talked with officials in the Assistant Secretary and Secretary of the Army’s Offices, and gotten unofficial oks….but again under yet another regulation, AR 40.3.

So the final result was this:  I was still separated from the service Thursday evening (12 hours after we got the ok) and Jeanne was given special permission by letter from the Secretary of the Army, to have the baby at the Army’s expense.  So now we are enjoying the time together as we wait patiently for the little arrival…it couldn’t have worked out better.