Square One

My name is James. I am 29 years old as of this entry and have a wonderful family consisting of my amazing wife and two energetic children, whom I call Buddy and Kiddo. They are both 12 years old and the highlight of my days are hearing the things that come out of their mouths. They crack me up continuously. There is also my lovely lady, the Cookies to my Cream, the Honey Bunches to my Oats and the Captain to my Tennille. Well, actually switch that around. She's Tennille.....I'm the Captain. You get what I mean. I'm the dude. Anyways, they are my primary motivation for joining the military. To provide them a stable future is one of the chief reasons I'm enlisting but  the other big goal is to be the best possible version of myself that I can.


This is the first entry of a journal I'd like to keep of my life going forward. Not the life I've lived for the past 29 years, but the new one I'm starting by joining the U.S. Army. It is with great hope and a great degree of humility that I take these first steps into what I feel is truly the realization of my full potential. I have spent a large portion of my life being scared of failure and that kept me from being anything more than mediocre in achievement and personal merit. Time for a change. My father was in the Army and served in Vietnam. He saw close friends die in front of him and received a Purple Heart for being wounded in combat. He pulled the trigger and killed men he had no personal quarrel with in a war he didn't believe was worth fighting, but he still went and did his duty. Due to the PTSD that resulted from combat as well as a lack of respect from the general public towards veterans, Dad always told me that the military was not for me. He didn't want me to have the same experience he had. I attribute this as his attempt at trying to protect me from harm or trauma, and while it may not have been the correct decision, I truly respect the efforts made by my father to try and avert what he saw as a negative from affecting me. I must say though, that he did ALWAYS stress to me how important it was to honor, respect and support our troops and must also add that he was always proud of the fact that he didn't dodge the draft. He was a patriotic citizen who always made sure to instill patriotism in his children. Most importantly, he was a good man and a great father. I was very close to him and when he died of lymphoma cancer on August 28th, 2010, it changed my life in ways I am still experiencing more than two years later. Sadly, it was his service in Vietnam and the exposure to Agent Orange that caused his illness, yet through all the radiation, chemo and experimental treatments he endured, including losing a third of his body weight, he never once complained. He taught me more about life in dying then I had ever learned on my own by living. It is my belief that while he did not endorse it in his life, that Dad would have understood my joining the military and the opportunities it affords me and my family.

This blog is the first effort I have really made in trying to document my life. There will be no guarantees. Updates may be daily, weekly or even more sporadic, but my desire is to document Basic Combat Training and AIT as much as possible. I hope that this information may be useful to someone else that is looking to join the Army. If you have any questions or comments about my experience feel free to leave a comment!