Can I Gush About My Military Husband?

If you follow me on IG then you know that if I'm talking about my husband in my stories, I am generally pissed off at him and rarely gush about him. He really is an amazing man. He bends over backwards for his kids. He has two teenage boys that he gives as much as he can to even though he only gets to see them for 2 months every summer. It's a hazard of living on the other side of the country and flights being so damn expensive. Our daughter has him wrapped around his little finger. Just about anything she wants he will get for her.

He is the kind of man who also down plays his abilities. He joined the military in 2004. That's right! My military husband is coming up on 21 years of Active Duty service. When we got together he had just transferred to the West Coast. It had been almost 9 years since we had a very brief meeting but after hanging out for a month, we started dating. I quickly learned how great he was at his job. He would show me his marks and couldn't understand why his supervisors would rate him so high. He would tell me about all the things that he was doing. He got selected to participate in exercises that not only included all branches of the military but the government in some cases.

When we moved in together in 2014 he was working on finally finishing his Bachelor's degree. It has something to do with IT stuff. I don't even pretend to know what it is. He graduated with honors and after talking to his superiors and some friends that he had made along the way, they convinced him to apply to become a Direct Commission Officer. He met all of the qualifications. He went through the process, seeking out others he knew who had gone the same route to ask questions to, and finally submitted his packet. During this process he also promoted from E-5 to E-6. He asked if that would mean a transfer that coming summer (2015) and was told no because he was filling an E-6 billet. Great! Fantastic!

Fast forward to early 2015 and I end up with an back injury that takes me out of my job. That job also took away our discount on our apartment so we had to move. That's a story for another time but he was being told that there was a very good chance that he would get picked for the DCO program and I was so excited for him! Now we have moved to a new apartment with sketchy neighbors, a huge downgrade from where we had lived, only to find out about a week into our lease that he was, in fact, being transferred and to the other side of the country! Needless to say, it wasn't very long after he reported in to his new unit that he got the official letter that he was selected for the DCO program and in December 2015 he received his new rank of O-1E (the E designates that they were prior enlisted).

He has done a great many things in his time as an officer. His original plan was to advance to O-3E and retire. Along the way he started noting that in order to make some real change he would need to be an O-4 or higher. Overall that I think would take 10 years or so. He didn't like the thought of having to play politics but received so much great feedback on his evaluations that he started thinking that maybe spending some time as an O-4 and retiring (making more money in retirement) might be something he was interested in.

In order to prepare himself for some more leadership roles, he applied for and was selected to complete a Master's program at the school of his choosing (and acceptance). This brings us to Covid times. He completed his Masters in some kind of IT Cyber Security Management but was robbed of the honor to walk across the stage on campus because of the 6 foot rule and then only being allowed to have 1 guest at graduation so he opted not to go. He received his beautiful diploma, in Latin, and has it hanging in his office. Oh...I forgot to mention...it was from Georgetown University in Washington DC. I was and still am so proud of all that he has done.

Now this is just glossing over all that he has done during his career. I know I didn't go into specifics but that's because some of his really cool stuff he can't even tell me all the details! Where I became most proud of him was when he went back to work after getting his Masters. This man not only stood up for himself but for countless others that he was supposed to be aiding. Does that sound cryptic? Yeah...it's supposed to! Stay tuned for the next part coming next Friday!