Ten years ago

It was the summer of 2001. I was 19 years old, I wore Levis and my favorite boots, and carried the orders for me and three other recruits as we all boarded a plane in Jacksonville, Florida, bound for St. Louis, and eventually Ft. Leonard Wood, where half of us would succeed at becoming soldiers.

Meanwhile in Kansas, a Specialist became a Sergeant, and got orders to Korea.

Neither he nor I knew it at that point, but with my enlistment and his promotion and orders, we had both set off on the road to Ft. Hood, where we would meet. It would take us both the better part of a year to get there, and another month to meet one another, then a couple years after that to finally be together, but if the actions we had taken ten years ago today had been any different, none of this ever would have happened.

Had I not enlisted, had he worked less hard and not been promoted out of his slot, we never would have met. I probably wouldn't have left Florida, and just done something there, not sure what. He more than likely would have gone back to Minnesota, and lived out the rest of his days working on the line in the same boat factory everyone else in his hometown works in. My last name wouldn't be my last name. We wouldn't have our pretty little house in Texas. I surely wouldn't be sitting here in that pretty little house, nursing our infant son while our toddler son plays with the dog just feet away. These beautiful boys are here because ten years ago today, a civilian became a Private, and a Specialist became a Sergeant, and both chose to serve, and continue on the winding road to Ft. Hood. I, for one, would not trade a single bit of it.