(To read Part 1, Click Here)
Fast forward back to the spring of 2003. I had about a year and a half left on my enlistment and for the first time since I went active duty in 1998, I honestly had no idea what to do. I'd originally enlisted in the Army Reserves out of high school in 1989 to help pay for college. After graduating college in 1993, I bounced around from job to job not knowing what the hell I was doing until around 1995 when one of my best friends, Randy Pouliot came back to visit home. Randy and I were inseparable our senior year of high school. We spent our senior year touring various colleges around New England, some of which we had no interest in but college visits were an excused absence from school so we milked it for all it was worth and drove all over New Hampshire in his mom's blue Ford Escort. I ended up at Franklin Pierce College (since renamed Franklin Pierce University) and Randy settled on University of Massachusetts-Lowell. After one semester, he ran out of money so he went back home and got a shitty job at a local pizza joint. But Randy was smart and resourceful and there was no way he was going to let his circumstances keep him down so he did the best thing he could have done - he joined the Air Force and he got the hell out of Dodge, er, Nashua. He ended up being stationed at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas and in 1995, when I was between jobs, I had a chance to drive cross country with him from Boston to Las Vegas and then spend a couple weeks with him in Sin City and it was a life changing experience for me.
For the first time, I got to see other parts of the USA and realized that there was life outside New England that I'd never seen and then I got to experience life as an active duty Air Force person (I was still in the Army Reserves at the time so I had full base privileges where he was). I was so enamored with it all that when I got back home, I called an Air Force Recruiter to try and enlist in the Air Force. The Recruiter told me that I was THEE perfect candidate - young, single, no dependents, college degree - but unfortunately I was in the Army Reserves and they were not allowed to accept prior service (people from other services). I was crushed and gave up on that dream pretty quick because, well...I had no choice.
Things got pretty bad after that until, in early 1998, I'd had enough and ended up enlisting active duty in the Army, since the Air Force was not an option (although I did try one more time and was told, again, that the Air Force was not accepting prior service). It's funny for me to look back on it now but at the time, I was terrified. I'd gone to college and gotten a job with my own office, all the things I thought I was supposed to do as part of the 'American Dream'. I had all my friends that I'd grown up with, we spent our time watching Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins and Celtics games together and I could not fathom ever leaving my little bubble that I'd grown up in and that I just figured would be my future. But I was miserable and feeling like I was going nowhere - although I did not want to join the Army, they offered me a guaranteed tour in Europe and money for my Masters Degree, and so in spring of 1998, I went active duty Army and went to Germany to start my new life. At the time I figured I'd just do my three year commitment, see as much of Europe as I could, then go back to the US and use my GI Bill money to get my Masters Degree in something I was interested in doing for a career. However, as it so often does, fate had other plans for me...
I took to Europe right away. I did two years in Germany and then transferred to Italy where I felt like I wanted to stay forever. Life in Italy was like paradise. In Germany I had to live in the barracks with all the other enlisted soldiers and I hated it. But in Italy, I had been promoted to Sergeant and was able to live off base in a beautiful two bedroom apartment with marble floors and a balcony with a captivating view of the Dolomites (Italian Alps). I was happier than I've ever been, I just could not envision life getting any better.
During that time I expanded my traveling adventures, took a few trips to various places in Asia, met a girl in Hong Kong and got married. Not long after we got married, we were expecting our first child. Something was happening - I was becoming...domesticated. First the first time since I left for Europe in 1998, I suddenly had to think about the future and come up with a plan. The way I saw it, I had but two options: Either finish my current enlistment, get out and get a job or make the Army my career and stay in until retirement. If I was going to make the Army my career, it certainly was NOT going to be as an enlisted soldier. Nothing against enlisted soldiers, it's just that as a 30 year old buck sergeant, I was well behind the curve and probably wouldn't go much further. Nay, I would have to go to OCS and become an officer if the Army was to be a career for me. Believe it or not, I would have loved to do that and finish my career as an officer but the war in Afghanistan was a couple years old and the war in Iraq was just getting started and I foresaw many miserable deployments ahead of me if I went that route so it was a difficult decision. On the other hand, I had a job at the time working on a system called JOPES and I had made a lot of contacts in the JOPES world who kept telling me I should get out of the Army and get a Department of Defense civilian job because, with two wars going on, JOPES experts were in very high demand. I personally knew people who did the same job as me who were getting out of the military and walking into GS11 and 12 jobs. As a lowly buck sergeant, it was a very attractive option. I was leaning in that direction until one fateful day in the spring of 2003 that would change...well, pretty much everything.
(To go to Part 3, CLICK HERE)
Fast forward back to the spring of 2003. I had about a year and a half left on my enlistment and for the first time since I went active duty in 1998, I honestly had no idea what to do. I'd originally enlisted in the Army Reserves out of high school in 1989 to help pay for college. After graduating college in 1993, I bounced around from job to job not knowing what the hell I was doing until around 1995 when one of my best friends, Randy Pouliot came back to visit home. Randy and I were inseparable our senior year of high school. We spent our senior year touring various colleges around New England, some of which we had no interest in but college visits were an excused absence from school so we milked it for all it was worth and drove all over New Hampshire in his mom's blue Ford Escort. I ended up at Franklin Pierce College (since renamed Franklin Pierce University) and Randy settled on University of Massachusetts-Lowell. After one semester, he ran out of money so he went back home and got a shitty job at a local pizza joint. But Randy was smart and resourceful and there was no way he was going to let his circumstances keep him down so he did the best thing he could have done - he joined the Air Force and he got the hell out of Dodge, er, Nashua. He ended up being stationed at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas and in 1995, when I was between jobs, I had a chance to drive cross country with him from Boston to Las Vegas and then spend a couple weeks with him in Sin City and it was a life changing experience for me.
Randy and I at Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas, 1995
For the first time, I got to see other parts of the USA and realized that there was life outside New England that I'd never seen and then I got to experience life as an active duty Air Force person (I was still in the Army Reserves at the time so I had full base privileges where he was). I was so enamored with it all that when I got back home, I called an Air Force Recruiter to try and enlist in the Air Force. The Recruiter told me that I was THEE perfect candidate - young, single, no dependents, college degree - but unfortunately I was in the Army Reserves and they were not allowed to accept prior service (people from other services). I was crushed and gave up on that dream pretty quick because, well...I had no choice.
Things got pretty bad after that until, in early 1998, I'd had enough and ended up enlisting active duty in the Army, since the Air Force was not an option (although I did try one more time and was told, again, that the Air Force was not accepting prior service). It's funny for me to look back on it now but at the time, I was terrified. I'd gone to college and gotten a job with my own office, all the things I thought I was supposed to do as part of the 'American Dream'. I had all my friends that I'd grown up with, we spent our time watching Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins and Celtics games together and I could not fathom ever leaving my little bubble that I'd grown up in and that I just figured would be my future. But I was miserable and feeling like I was going nowhere - although I did not want to join the Army, they offered me a guaranteed tour in Europe and money for my Masters Degree, and so in spring of 1998, I went active duty Army and went to Germany to start my new life. At the time I figured I'd just do my three year commitment, see as much of Europe as I could, then go back to the US and use my GI Bill money to get my Masters Degree in something I was interested in doing for a career. However, as it so often does, fate had other plans for me...
I took to Europe right away. I did two years in Germany and then transferred to Italy where I felt like I wanted to stay forever. Life in Italy was like paradise. In Germany I had to live in the barracks with all the other enlisted soldiers and I hated it. But in Italy, I had been promoted to Sergeant and was able to live off base in a beautiful two bedroom apartment with marble floors and a balcony with a captivating view of the Dolomites (Italian Alps). I was happier than I've ever been, I just could not envision life getting any better.
Sitting on the balcony of my little apartment in Italy sipping vino and enjoying the view. It was truly La Dolce Vita...
During that time I expanded my traveling adventures, took a few trips to various places in Asia, met a girl in Hong Kong and got married. Not long after we got married, we were expecting our first child. Something was happening - I was becoming...domesticated. First the first time since I left for Europe in 1998, I suddenly had to think about the future and come up with a plan. The way I saw it, I had but two options: Either finish my current enlistment, get out and get a job or make the Army my career and stay in until retirement. If I was going to make the Army my career, it certainly was NOT going to be as an enlisted soldier. Nothing against enlisted soldiers, it's just that as a 30 year old buck sergeant, I was well behind the curve and probably wouldn't go much further. Nay, I would have to go to OCS and become an officer if the Army was to be a career for me. Believe it or not, I would have loved to do that and finish my career as an officer but the war in Afghanistan was a couple years old and the war in Iraq was just getting started and I foresaw many miserable deployments ahead of me if I went that route so it was a difficult decision. On the other hand, I had a job at the time working on a system called JOPES and I had made a lot of contacts in the JOPES world who kept telling me I should get out of the Army and get a Department of Defense civilian job because, with two wars going on, JOPES experts were in very high demand. I personally knew people who did the same job as me who were getting out of the military and walking into GS11 and 12 jobs. As a lowly buck sergeant, it was a very attractive option. I was leaning in that direction until one fateful day in the spring of 2003 that would change...well, pretty much everything.
(To go to Part 3, CLICK HERE)
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