The Army is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. It has given me experiences and opportunities in life that I never would have had otherwise, led me to meeting my wife, and put me where I am today. How did my journey begin? Let me take you back to an infamous day in American history- September 11, 2001.
I was a senior in high school when the attacks happened. Like most other kids my age, I was just trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, applying to colleges, and wondering what my future would hold. The events of that fateful day filled me with very strong emotions, mostly anger, and the path I was to go down from then on began to take shape. Within three weeks I enlisted in the Army, as did about half of my friends. I was going to fight back, fight for America, and stand up for freedom.
To be clear, my mom was not thrilled about it at first. She was concerned for my safety and my life, which is definitely understandable, especially after the horrific attack that had just been unleashed on our country. The conversations unfolded and as we discussed options more, she became more comfortable with the idea. She signed my paperwork (I was only 17 at the time) and I became a paralegal in the United States Army.
Upon graduating high school in June of 2002, I traveled to Fort Jackson, South Carolina for Basic Training. Let me tell you, for a New Hampshire kid, South Carolina in the summertime is hot! I remember meeting the Puerto Rican National Guard guys who were there learning English, learning the ropes, and I’ll definitely never forget the first time I had to do push-ups there because it was accompanied by fire ants crawling all over my hands and biting me relentlessly. My hat got knocked off my head on my way off the bus when we arrived, and so there I was, running around with my hand on top of my head (because your head had to be covered all the time) while the Drill Sergeants screamed at me. Not what you would call enjoyable by any stretch of the imagination, but I realized at that moment that maybe the Army and I were going to be just fine with each other.
I didn’t care that people were screaming at me and making me do push-ups. I could completely tune out everything that was going on around me and just focus on the task at hand. I thought to myself, “This guy’s going to yell at me, okie dokie, but eventually he’s going to stop and I will move on with my life, and until then I will just tune him out.” There are so many things that happen in the Army that are out of your control, like going on drives in unarmored Humvees fully aware of the possibility that an IED might explode at any second. Or the time I was in Iraq in 2004 on a drive to Kuwait with Captain Dondero- the drive was supposed to take 12 hours but ended up taking about 36 because CPT Dondero lost the keys to his Blue Force Tracker and then got us lost twice.
There’s nothing I could do about any of that, and when I can’t do anything about something, I don’t stress about it, I just suck it up and roll with it. Like my comrade Jesse Powell would say, “When you’re in a river of insanity, just go limp.” His explanation was an illustration about whitewater rafting that goes something like this: “You ever hear about people getting hurt really badly in whitewater rafting accidents? You know who doesn’t get hurt? The drunk people. You know why? Because they don’t know any better; they’re just floating down the river. That’s how you gotta be in life.” I thought to myself that he actually had a lot of wisdom in what he was saying, and that is pretty much how I live my life and it has served me well.
I turned 18 in Basic and completed my AIT (Advanced Individual Training). Jeremy Mayhall was my roommate during AIT, went with me to Airborne School and Fort Bragg, and is my best friend to this day. We had a group of friends whom we still keep in contact with including Abe Marquez, George Pierce, Mike Fisher (now a Command Sergeant Major), and Ian Northrup (now a Sergeant Major). It’s pretty funny for me to think about our days with Ian in AIT and the fact that he’s a Sergeant Major now. Mike and I deployed to Iraq together in my first unit and he was my NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer). I ran into Abe in Kuwait in 2017, and George in Erbil, Iraq in 2016 because we ended up being there at the same time. How amusing that you end up seeing some of the same guys you were a Private with fifteen years later.
I graduated AIT right before Christmas of 2002 and then went off to Airborne School in February of 2003. The guys in that battalion had all just gotten back from Bagram, Afghanistan, so myself and the other new guys were the only ones in the entire company who didn’t have a combat patch. All we wanted to do was deploy; we just didn’t want to be the only slick sleeve dudes in the unity anymore. We got our wish in August of that year with our first deployment to Fallujah, Iraq.
While I was in Iraq, I started thinking about my future with the Army. It seemed a good fit and like it was the right place for me. If you asked my mom, she’d tell you I’d been drawing American flags since I was about four years old, so maybe I was always destined to be here. Making a career out of the Army sounded better and better to me the more I thought about it. West Point wasn’t an option for me out of high school, as I really didn’t start getting my act together until about my junior year, and so ended up graduating with a 2.7GPA. However, it was an option for me at that point. I remember my step-dad talking to me about the military service academies, and when we were briefed on West Point in AIT, the idea started working itself around in my head.
I called my mom from Fallujah and spoke with her about it. She told me to think about it before I made a decision that was going to impact the next ten years of my life. So I did, and I made the decision to put in my application for West Point. CSM Mike Fisher, my NCO at the time, helped push my application packet through to MAJ Stone, who pushed it up to Colonel Smith, my Brigade Commander, who signed my packet. I still remember sitting in COL Smith’s office as a Private in 2003 and him taking the time out of leading a brigade of soldiers in combat to talk to me about the decision to apply to West Point. It was his recommendation that got me in.
