You asked, I told

Hey Army Wife, thank you for the questions. 


John will actually stay at Ft. Benning for OCS, so there will be a short distance from where he is now at Benning to where he will be going for OCS at Benning. After e-mailing a commander, I have been granted permission to drive him from BCT to OCS Friday morning. Still not sure at this point if I will get the weekend with him or not, but I will take the short drive. 


John would like to do something in the medical field, He is very interested in lab work and research. All I can really think about is Nicholas Cage in The Rock where he has to diffuse the bomb or the whole place blows up. I am not sure where he would go for that. I have heard Ft. Hood, Texas is where they do their Medical training. 


Ideally we would like to be stationed at Ft. Bragg, NC. We have friends that live in Charlotte and we love going down to visit them. I am actually going down there next weekend and they are nice enough to let me stay with them on my way to GA to break up the trip. 


I do work and I plan to keep on working. However, I am nervous about finding a new job. If we do get to make the move to BOLC B I am nervous about finding a temp job for just a few months, but I know it will all work out. I won't have to work, but I want to contribute. I'm nervous to look for a job when we get stationed as well because depending how far as are from base I worry that some employers will look me over because they won't there is a chance I won't be long term. 


When it became official that John was joining the Army I started to think about my career a bit more. I never wanted to be a stay at home mom because I didn't want to waste my education. I am currently working on my masters and really don't want to finish it if I am not going to use it. Ideally I would like to find a job I can do from home or take any where with me. I have a undergrad in both Advertising and Marketing and my masters will be in Integrated Marketing Communications. Really though, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, so that doesn't help the situation. 


However, my thoughts have changed because I know we may not be in the same place for more than three to five years at a time and it would be nice to be able to stay at home with the kids. John's mom stayed home with him and he enjoyed the memories he made with her. I come from a single parent household so I was in daycare or my grandmother watched me. I try not to think about it too much now because we don't even know where we are going. Right now though I do plan to work and when we have kids we will look at the situation again. I just don't know what I would do if I didn't work, especially when he is deployed.

The hardest sacrifice? I don't know if I have honestly come across that yet. Right now though it is probably giving them my life. I don't just mean me and control over my life, but I also mean John. He is my world, my soul mate and my best friend. I feel like I handed him over. They tell us when we can talk, when we can be together. 


As someone who has to plan everything I am slowly learning that I need to just let things be sometimes. With the Army you never know what is going to happen, well with the military in general, and you just have to go with the flow. We have been told that going to Ft. Bragg is likely because it is such a huge base, but there may not be an opening for what he wants. You can't plan anything and have to roll with the punches. 


What did I think of the Army? Not really sure. I dated a guy in high school that was a year older than me. Going into my senior year of high school he left to be Marine. While it wasn't like anything I am going through now with John, I should have known I was meant to be a military wife. 


I don't want to be jaded. I want to be positive about the situation because this is what he wanted. He seems happy. I realize that I am not always going to be happy with the Army decides to do with him, but the Army is family now and we just have to work it out and deal with it. I don't always get along with John or my parents, but they are family. 


I never knew anyone in the military really until I met John. He is from an Air Force family: his dad, his grandfather, a few cousins, his oldest brother, a few uncles, so he knew the military life. He lucked out though because his dad was stationed at the same base for 16 years before they moved to where they are now. 


I am excited for what the future holds for us. Even though there are going to be rough patches, I look forward to the opportunities the Army has in store for us. I would love to go overseas and be stationed for a few years and explore the world. I've lived within an hour of the same place my whole life and traveled only to less than a dozen states. The rewards out weight the downfalls.