The Decision To Join

I always knew I was going to join the military, however, I never knew exactly what branch or job I would choose. I was born on Tyndall Air Force Base, located in Panama City, Florida. I grew up a military brat moving fairly frequently due to my mother's assignments. A couple of years later my parents divorced and my father retired from the Air Force.

As a kid growing up on a military base and in that sort of environment it becomes all you know. Military life has with it its own culture and lifestyle. It isn't uncommon to grow up going to 4 or more different grade schools, always being the "new kid" experiencing that isolation of starting over anew.

Eventually, I made the decision to move in with my father in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. I loved my mom as every kid does, but the persistent moving wasn't best for me. As a kid consistency is key. I needed a stable environment.

Before I knew it I found myself on my way to high school as a freshman! I was excited because school wasn't just plain old and boring anymore, because I joined the Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Palm Beach Gardens High School. I finally found myself in a program with kids of a like mind or who had grown up in a similar environment and who desired a military career sometime in their future. It felt good.

My NJROTC experience was fun, yet flawed. I took away with it memories and friends that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Four years later though and it was over and I was to attend college at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. Looking back it seems like it went by so quickly yet at the time damn did it feel like an eternity!

In college I lost myself. I found another lifestyle, a different environment that was seductive, fun, and irresponsible. I fell into the Greek life on campus and found that I had changed. I went to college because I was told I had to. I was told as a kid growing up that going to college was just what people did after high school and I went with it, I never argued or went against my parents, and I gave in. I wish I hadn't.

College was fun; there were girls, parties, girls, clubs, girls, and even beer! Did I mention girls? Needless to say I got so caught up in my fraternity and campus life that I lost sight of what it is I really wanted to accomplish and do with my life. I suffered through three years of college before I realized this. I say suffer because I was taking classes irrelevant to my major, enrolled in a program that was irrelevant to my interests, and socializing with people who most certainly will contribute nothing to society.

I felt like a zombie, a shell of my former self. I began smoking profusely; I ceased being physically active at all, and often found myself lacking the will or motivation to even get out of bed. I was depressed.

Then I made a change. I moved. Cleared my head. I rediscovered what it was I was meant to do, join the service. A college degree and nine to five desk job isn't for me; I wish to live my life differently. So I scheduled my appointment and planned on visiting an Air Force recruiter.