We Have Big News!!!

This has been a long time coming. Army writing tells me to put the bottom line up front, but I want to tell a story first.

In July 1988, I enlisted in the Army. The Army has been good to me and my family. I cannot say enough about how much I appreciate the people with whom I have worked and the organizations in which I have served. It has been a fantastic ride. Janelle and I saw a lot of beautiful places before the kids arrived. And we have seen a lot more beautiful places with the kids. It all culminated with our tour here in Heidelberg, Germany.

As time moves along, the moves become more difficult. With Janelle and I doing it on our own it seemed like an adventure every time. Then we had kids. The moves were at first somewhat of an adventure, if not a bit more complicated. As our oldest two children got older, they started to get upset about moving away from friends or having their friends move away from them. Schools changed every couple of years. Neighborhoods changed. Everything about how we live changed every time we moved. The adventure is still there, but it is largely overshadowed by the challenges we face in terms of friends and lifestyle.

For years we have been toying with the idea of retiring from the Army. I first considered it when we moved to Fort Lewis, WA. Then I was offered a job at Fort Carson, CO. We seriously considered retirement at Fort Carson, but I was offered a job I could not refuse in Charlottesville, VA. I planned to retire after our assignment in Charlottesville, but I was offered another job I could not refuse in Heidelberg, Germany. That one was made all the more irresistable when Janelle said she was willing to do it. So for the past five years we have been meaning to make our current tour our last. Three tours after we first started considering it, we are finally ready to retire.

With each of our moves we got further and further away from our families. It was hard on Janelle and I, the kids, and I'm sure very hard on Grandmas and Grandpas. For a long time, maybe 19 years, I did not seriously consider the cost of my career on my wife and children. That all started to change in Heidelberg.

Rylie is a girl who loves to be around people and loves to learn. She preferred to be in school versus summer break. Now she does not like to go to school and would leave here tomorrow if she could. School has been a horrible experience for her in the military community here. Her first teacher was a bully. We got her moved and her new class turned out to be a classroom full of bullies. She has changed significantly and we can see the emotional toll this tour has taken on her.

Karter has actually done better in school here than he did last year. His teacher at school made all the difference. However, he has had multiple problems with bullies this year also.

Emorie started showing her displeasure with the military lifestyle when her little friend Ava moved away in the last couple of weeks. She was very displeased and told us she did not want Ava to leave.

Brenner just doesn't care yet. :)

In addition to our kids' experience in Heidelberg, my continued career would certainly involve a deployment immediately or very soon after this tour. I would not have minded a deployment or even multiple deployments earlier in this conflict, during the first Gulf War, or one of the many other operations that have gone on since I enlisted. Now is a bad time for my oldest son. It certainly is never a good time for any of our kids. But our son, who will be 9 next month, is at a fragile point in his life. He needs a father's guidance for the next couple of years.

A lot of things have happened over the past couple of months to encourage then reinforce our decision to retire. My understanding of the sacrifice my wife and children have made over the years has been made more clear to me. I knew that Janelle understood I was in the Army when we married. But I never considered that she really didn't know what she was getting herself into. And I never thought about the fact that my kids didn't even get a chance to consider if this was the type of life they wanted. I can't express the gratitude I have for them supporting me and putting up with this lifestyle for so long. I finally started to see that it was time for me to put them before my career.

As I said before, the Army has been very good to me. I have had wonderful assignments that have made being a family man pretty easy by Army standards. But it is still the Army. Moves are inevitable and deployments are likely in today's Army. We decided that our ride is coming to an end.

The exact date of retirement is not clear right now. The plan is that we will retire effective 1 October 2012. With leave and other types of days off, I'll be wearing civilian clothes permanently starting around July of that year. We may even get to come back to a station in the US for the last year or so before I retire.

We are ready for a whole new adventure - hopefully it's called stability! I haven't had to look for a job in a very long time. Wish me (us) luck!