In honor of MY Veteran.
November 11th 2006 01:53
My husband got to stay home today for Veterans Day. We both completely forgot about this holiday, and since it falls on a Saturday this year, he got today off instead. It was a nice surprise for us.
I am very proud of my husband. He has been serving in the Navy for 9 years now, and plans on leaving when they make him. and in honor of my Veteran, I'll tell the story on how we got to be a Navy family.
Tony and I are high school sweethearts. I knew he had a itch to join the Navy since he was a kid. I was scared though, I didn't want to lose him, and he didn;t want to lose me. We had a weird co-dependency thing going on. We broke up for awhile, and in that time we both grew up a ton. We got back together, and moved in with each other. During our break up we had both landed decent paying jobs.
For two years we lived in that apartment, working and doing our thing. I could tell as time wore on that Tony felt he was missing out on something. He is a smart man, and he felt he wasn't being used to his potential. I thought he was. Even though I knew Tony was smart, I never really gave him credit for being as smart as he is. I always thought our life would be totally blue collar, kind of like Rosanne and Dan Connor. I know that seems silly, like I wasn't a big dreamer, but I liked that whole idea. I know, isn't that insane? I realize now that was my own issue of not feeling I was good enough. I'm still working on it. The whole "We're together, even though people didn't think we'd make it, and although we are struggling to make ends meet, we're still totally in love and that's enough to get us through" It's corny I know, but I am still really drawn to shows about high school sweethearts, Still Standing and Grounded for Life come to mind, other than Roseanne.
Tony's job opened a small electronics shop. When I mean small, I literally mean they built a small box that fit like two people if they sucked in their guts. Tony was working in the shop building and repairing drive shafts. He enjoyed it. He would come home dirty, with grease under his nails and this was comforting to me. Like "this is how our life should be" kind of a feeling. He started to help a bit here in there in the electronics department and then moved there full time. Here is where he found his true love. Unfortunately, they only taught him enough to keep him there, not to do anything with what he learned.
We researched technical schools and we just could not afford any of them. We gave brief thought to loans, but we just didn't think we could swing it. We had made a lot of crappy financial decisions. He decided he was going to just "talk" to a Navy recruiter about reserves. He was 20 at the time. Two years out of high school.
He comes home to pick me up from work and said he needed to speak to me. He got down on his knees and I thought "Oh crap" I knew he wasn't proposing, as we were already engaged. He said "So, I talked to them, and they said I can't join the reserves" I looked at him warily and said "Oookay" and then he paused and looked up at me again, and said 'So, I joined" and I said "The reserves right?" and he said "No, the Navy. I'm going to join. I'm just going to join to get the schooling and then I'll quit! I promise, but I'm not going to get anywhere any other way"
I think I burst into tears.
Tony didn't leave for a LONG time. I want to say almost a year. Time went by so fast. We got married 3 weeks before he left for Boot Camp. I moved out of my apartment and in with my family. 20 yrs old, married and living with my parents. Unfortunately, this wouldn't be the only time in the first few years of his career. Communication was hard. He could only send so many letters. He was held back a few weeks too for writing a letter when he wasn't supposed to.
We all headed up to his graduation, and the difference in hiim was immediatly apparent. Even though he had been through the hardest thing in his life, he seemed oddly at peace. He was proud to wear that uniform, and I knew then this wasn't going to be a "just for the school" thing. I married into a life time deal.
I'll admit I felt a big screwed, and a little bit like I'd been tricked. I loved him though and even though it was hard hard hard, it made our marriage so much stronger. He did several six month deployments, and it was hard hard hard, but we worked through it.
So, that's that. Now, he's doing recruiting, which is actually harder on all of us than the 6 month deployments. He is never able to leave his work at home like when he was on a ship. It is nice to curl up next to him every night though.
In the end though, I see him in that uniform, and I feel nothing but pride for him.
I am very proud of my husband. He has been serving in the Navy for 9 years now, and plans on leaving when they make him. and in honor of my Veteran, I'll tell the story on how we got to be a Navy family.
Tony and I are high school sweethearts. I knew he had a itch to join the Navy since he was a kid. I was scared though, I didn't want to lose him, and he didn;t want to lose me. We had a weird co-dependency thing going on. We broke up for awhile, and in that time we both grew up a ton. We got back together, and moved in with each other. During our break up we had both landed decent paying jobs.
For two years we lived in that apartment, working and doing our thing. I could tell as time wore on that Tony felt he was missing out on something. He is a smart man, and he felt he wasn't being used to his potential. I thought he was. Even though I knew Tony was smart, I never really gave him credit for being as smart as he is. I always thought our life would be totally blue collar, kind of like Rosanne and Dan Connor. I know that seems silly, like I wasn't a big dreamer, but I liked that whole idea. I know, isn't that insane? I realize now that was my own issue of not feeling I was good enough. I'm still working on it. The whole "We're together, even though people didn't think we'd make it, and although we are struggling to make ends meet, we're still totally in love and that's enough to get us through" It's corny I know, but I am still really drawn to shows about high school sweethearts, Still Standing and Grounded for Life come to mind, other than Roseanne.
Tony's job opened a small electronics shop. When I mean small, I literally mean they built a small box that fit like two people if they sucked in their guts. Tony was working in the shop building and repairing drive shafts. He enjoyed it. He would come home dirty, with grease under his nails and this was comforting to me. Like "this is how our life should be" kind of a feeling. He started to help a bit here in there in the electronics department and then moved there full time. Here is where he found his true love. Unfortunately, they only taught him enough to keep him there, not to do anything with what he learned.
We researched technical schools and we just could not afford any of them. We gave brief thought to loans, but we just didn't think we could swing it. We had made a lot of crappy financial decisions. He decided he was going to just "talk" to a Navy recruiter about reserves. He was 20 at the time. Two years out of high school.
He comes home to pick me up from work and said he needed to speak to me. He got down on his knees and I thought "Oh crap" I knew he wasn't proposing, as we were already engaged. He said "So, I talked to them, and they said I can't join the reserves" I looked at him warily and said "Oookay" and then he paused and looked up at me again, and said 'So, I joined" and I said "The reserves right?" and he said "No, the Navy. I'm going to join. I'm just going to join to get the schooling and then I'll quit! I promise, but I'm not going to get anywhere any other way"
I think I burst into tears.
Tony didn't leave for a LONG time. I want to say almost a year. Time went by so fast. We got married 3 weeks before he left for Boot Camp. I moved out of my apartment and in with my family. 20 yrs old, married and living with my parents. Unfortunately, this wouldn't be the only time in the first few years of his career. Communication was hard. He could only send so many letters. He was held back a few weeks too for writing a letter when he wasn't supposed to.
We all headed up to his graduation, and the difference in hiim was immediatly apparent. Even though he had been through the hardest thing in his life, he seemed oddly at peace. He was proud to wear that uniform, and I knew then this wasn't going to be a "just for the school" thing. I married into a life time deal.
I'll admit I felt a big screwed, and a little bit like I'd been tricked. I loved him though and even though it was hard hard hard, it made our marriage so much stronger. He did several six month deployments, and it was hard hard hard, but we worked through it.
So, that's that. Now, he's doing recruiting, which is actually harder on all of us than the 6 month deployments. He is never able to leave his work at home like when he was on a ship. It is nice to curl up next to him every night though.
In the end though, I see him in that uniform, and I feel nothing but pride for him.
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