The Army Life

October 2010

“What about the Army?”

“What about it?”

This is how our first conversation started about John joining the Army. John's best friend had just come out to visit us from California before he left for his basic training for the Army.

“Ernie likes it.”

“Ernie likes a lot of dumb stuff.”

As you could see it was going over real well.

Here's what you need to understand. John is the most un-confrontational person I have ever met in my whole life.  Yes he likes to argue stupid tiny little things to the death or at least until I want to kill myself or hurt him but imagining him in ACU's with a shaved head, wielding a gun actually made me want to laugh until I cried.

“But it sounds good.”

“That's because recruiters brain wash their new recruits into thinking it's wonderful so they can drag more souls into hell with them.”

Our situation:

24 and 22 respectively, I had been in school to get my teaching license for Cosmetology when the school suddenly closed, leaving me 2 weeks short of course completion, starting anywhere else would have cost almost $3000, for a measly 80 hours of class time. John, worked for a company constantly being overworked, underpaid, and repeatedly passed up for any promotion that he applied for because no one took him serious enough since he was only 22. We had been living at home with my parents for the last two years, trying to get our shit together, only that was virtually impossible. Any time we hit “transfer to savings” on our bank account the money fairy didn't like it. Oh look a $400 vet bill. Hmm, I think their tires should explode, “here's a bill for two front tires, a new bearing, and an alignment, have a nice day!” Here's some pneumonia, take 2 weeks off of work unpaid! It was a fun year in our house to say the least.

“There's medical insurance!”

“Is it worth dying for?”

Yea, sue me, I wasn't exactly Polly Positive about this whole idea.  John wasn't brought up in a military family and neither was I. I did have a few cousins that went into the Marine's, but I was really young at the time, so I don't really count it. Knowing for a fact that the military had never crossed his mind until someone else planted the seed, down right pissed me off.  

John can be wishy washy. Growing up, he wanted to be a cop. Then we met and started dating. Deciding one day he'd like a family, being a police officer suddenly seemed far too dangerous. (Apparently...the Army is not? Go figure.) So then for about 6 months, he wanted to be a chef. I sat though some pretty interesting dinners during that part of our relationship. Then he found out that one of his friends made a lot of money working with computers, suddenly that was the greatest idea on the planet. So when the idea of the Army came around a few months after John was done being a video game designer, in my mind I knew it was just a phase. Someone somewhere would tell him about some other amazingly awesome job in a few months and that would be what John wanted to do.

So a few weeks later when I was sitting with my him in our local recruiters office, I was slightly dumbfounded. Surprised John had actually gone this far to bring me into this place and talk to the people I started to take it a little bit more seriously.

“We could have our own place.”

“You could go to school and we can work and have an apartment.”

Maybe not that serious. Then he went and took his ASVAB test and didn't do so hot. I won't lie, I was pretty excited. I figured that would be enough to deter him from pursuing this any further. Then he stole my Borders coupon (which I fully intended to use on buying the box set of the Sookie Stackhouse series) and went and bought a huge study guide book and started taking every practice test online that he could find.

I still wasn't thrilled with this whole military idea. I felt he was doing it for the wrong reasons. Most people I know that were in the military had joined because it was their life long dream since childhood, not their life long dream since September.

And we fought, and fought, and fought about it.

“I'll make more money that I'm making now.”

“What's the point if you're not alive to spend it?”

I still wasn't sure that this was the best and brightest idea. There wasn't a whole lot of convincing me otherwise. War, violence, soldiers coming back to the real world with PTSD, IEDs, suicide bombers. I know these things, I watch the the news, I read CNN and Yahoo, and my personal opinion has always been, “lets take the gazillion dollars used on sending our troops over there, build a giant dome around the whole area and let them just blow each other up.” Sure, it might not be the most diplomatic solution, but I sure am sick of helping other countries fight their battles when we have enough going on over here. But then again, what do I really know?

So we talked a bit about it. We agonized through the holidays, “What should we do?” “Is it really worth it?” “Do we want our lives to be at the mercy of someone else for at least the next 3 years or longer if he decides to make this a permanent thing?” “How hard will it be to be away from each other for months at a time with no contact?” “Is being in the army the only way to start our future together?”

I answered, “no.”

His reply...

“We can get married.”

Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!

~~~

So now fast forward 9 months later and John has got through the first part of his basic training, I couldn't be more happy for him or more proud of him. He's been busting his butt since he's been gone and I know it's been pretty rough on him being away for so long without any real form of contact besides letters. I don't think I could possibly be more proud of all the hard work and effort he's put into his training.  I love getting our letters and the 2 random phone calls that may equal about 7 minutes combined have felt like Christmas.  I know how tired he has to be, since I know they do more before 9am than most people do all day, so it means so much to open the mailbox and see one of his letters jammed between bills and junk mail. 

I was really worried about the Army getting to him and brainwashing him into some military drone but all in all, he's still the same old silly goofy John that I love...just balder. And when he tried to help me pack up my stuff, he started to roll it instead of fold it. All I know is if I catch him doing laundry like that...he's in for a world of hurt! Took me long enough to get him to fold stuff the 'right' way...I don't know if I can go through that one again.

Yes John and I may give each other a hard time and yes I may joke about how great it is that I don't have as much laundry to do, or how it great it is to have the whole bed to myself, I miss him a lot.  At the same time, him being gone has been a great experience for me.  I've learned to by more reliant on myself, even if that means I have to take back the stinky sticky gross bottle returns, or scoop the cat box...with a scarf wrapped around my face so I don't gag to death, or if it's driving on the freeway without freaking out (I am the worst driver in the world.)  I've learned to not complain about stuff as much.  It may be hot here, but it's nothing to being in full gear and marching 10 miles with a 50 pound pack on my back. I've come to appreciate the time I spend with John a lot more.  When I was in Georgia for family weekend, we both immediately fell back into our routine and it was the greatest feeling ever.  It happened so quickly that during the middle of the night I smacked him awake to move stuff off his night stand so the clock would project on the ceiling...totally forgot we weren't at home. 

Needless to say, I think this crazy military life just might work out great for us after all.  I'm so excited to get started on it.  I can't believe that John will be graduating in less than a month.  In a year everything has come full circle.  I'm so excited to look back and see where we started, and I'm even more excited going into our future.  I have a feeling it's going to......AWESOME :o)