Bye bye, caffeine

2008-03-07T14:51:00.000-08:00

Okay, so, I cut down to diet soda about two years ago or so. I know it really didn't make a huge difference, but I was happy knowing that I wasn't downing liquid sugar. Yesterday I decided that I should cut out soda and caffeine all together.

I have the migraine from hell.

Oh well, pop some motrin, eat lunch and off to work. I think that I might have gone overboard at the produce aisle at the store last night, anyone know if those green bags really work?

Introductions

2008-03-07T00:03:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Working Toward Service.

Just so I can scare all of you right at the beginning this is basically going to be a blog about me trying to change my life and habits so that I can serve in a certain capacity.

First some back-story before we get into how I want to serve.

I grew up in a mixed religion family. My mother’s family is primarily Catholic and my father’s side Baptist. It was… tempestuous at times. I remember going to church twice a week as a kid, Mass on Saturday and Sunday School and service at the Baptist church on Sunday. I probably would have been a little screwed up but I was lucky enough to pick up a children’s illustrated bible. I read the Gospel of Mark after I found out that I was named after it and pretty much just stuck with that. It seemed to make everyone happy.

The one real link between the two disparate sides of my family was military service. My father’s side has family records for pretty much every war in American history, apparently they’ve always been driven to serve in the military. The past few generations have been spread a bit through the Armed Services. My family has many Marines, Sailors and Soldiers on my fathers side. My mother’s side of the family was much more focused, it’s not that there are family members in the Navy, it’s that our family is Navy. That was always really confusing to me. As I child I hardly ever saw the inside of a military installation unless my Grandparents (on either side) were picking up prescriptions or making a trip to the commissary or PX. To sum it up, I was raised with a familial imperative to remember our proud military history, but with no real exposure to military life.

I promise I’m going somewhere with this by the way, I’m usually not this wordy but it’s hard to articulate 25 years of experience leading to one decision.

I attended a wonderful high school in Sacramento, California. Christian Brothers was basically a dream come true for my family and I. For most of my childhood the idea of going to a private college preparatory school wasn’t something we even considered. My mother passed away when I was four and the fees would have been to much for our single parent family. Then my father received amazing news, I had been accepted to Christian Brothers and would be attending on a legacy discount. Basically I was getting lower tuition because my Grandmother had attended the school 40 years before. This put the tuition right into our range of affordability if we stretched a little. So with some budgeting I was beginning my high school education at one of the best college preps in the city.

I remember how surreal it seemed the first day. I walked through a simple wrought-iron gate and I was suddenly in a different world. I looked around and saw completely new things. There was a 75 foot cross in the quad and, much to my surprise, a group of students encircling it with their heads bowed in prayer. The only thing on that campus taller than that cross was the flagpole, you could see the flag from anywhere on campus. There was a statue of Mary in the courtyard with kneelers set in front of her. There were trees everywhere! The schools I had attended before didn’t have trees, they were paved over with blacktop and had a square of muddy grass where you had PE. It was definitely a shock.

Over my four years at Christian Brothers I learned many things, but the lessons that remain with me now are the one’s I received in service. The school had a mandatory requirement that all student full-fill a set amount of service hours in the community a year. Now, I can’t speak for my classmates, but for me those times feeding the hungry and spending time with children who had no parents woke something up in me. I think it was the first time that I really began to understand my family’s attempts to maintain a strong religious and military culture. They did it because it was right, because sometimes, for a few moments, you knew that this was exactly what you were supposed to do. Giving of yourself, making another persons life that much easier, that much happier, is a feeling I still can’t give a name to. Pride seems inadequate to describe it. This pretty much led to the most bewildering thing I’d ever done, at least in the eyes of my family. As my graduation approached I would talk to recruiters on campus and share my families stories, but I didn’t want to join the military. For a family who’s timeline for children is pretty much; birth, eat, crawl, walk, talk, school, start high school, get drivers license, graduate high school, join the military this came as quite a shock.

At some point a nebulous certainty had grown in my mind, I wanted to be the first person in my family to get a college degree. My family supported me and I was accepted to California State University Sacramento. I graduated June 2001 and had moved into the dorm by the end of August because I wanted the whole college experience. I started classes and loved it. Then, with one phone call, my world shattered. I was planning on sleeping in on Sept. 11 because I didn’t have classes until the afternoon that day. My phone rang while it was still dark. It seems strange to me now that I can’t remember what time it was, just that it was dark outside. It was my father, he told me, “The World Trade Center has been attacked go find a television and turn it on.” I don’t even remember the rest of the conversation, I ran down the hall to my friends dorm and pounded on the door waking her and her roommate up. As soon as we turned on the television we were nearly mesmerized. It seemed impossible that something so big, two buildings nearly every American could recognize on sight were falling. Anyway, sorry, I’ll move on.

As I’ve said my family has many military members, both active duty and reserves and guards. It wasn’t that long after I finished up my freshmen year that my cousins, aunts and uncles were being called up into active duty. I found my self putting school plans on hold and going to work to help support my family on the home front. Things have been hard in the ensuing years but we made it, and things seem to be just calming down now. Somewhere, however, in the past six years the nebulous decision in my mind to, “go to college and get a good job” seems to have changed. Now when I listen to my heart what I hear is, “For me, the only honorable and worthwhile thing I can see myself doing is to prepare for and then enter military service.” At some point I think that seeing the men and women of our armed forces going out to defend others, to see these people who have willing sworn their lives before ours, has impressed on me something that all the family stories in the world couldn’t do. I stand in awe of these men and women, many of whom are younger than me. What they and their families sacrifice for us is unimaginable for most civilians. Therefore, in order to do what I feel is right, I’m going to join the military.

I know the branch I want to join, the Navy has always been center of our family stories that never failed to sing in my blood. Now here’s the funny part. In order to make it to basic training I’m going to have to completely change my lifestyle, exercise, better nutrition, cutting caffeine and sweets. I realize that it seems premature to make a decision to join an organization I can’t pass the fitness standards for, but that’s what this blog is for. Over the past year I think I had made the decision subconsciously. I found myself joining a gym, eating better and drinking more water, I’ve already dropped from 240 to 190 and have added quite a bit of muscle to my legs and shoulders. But recently I’ve noticed friends and co-workers questioning me. “Why would you join the military, do you want to go to Iraq?” “How can you join now, isn’t that just supporting this war?” and on and on. I gets discouraging, so this blog is a way for me to look back and remember why I’ve done this. To track my thoughts in my journey as I’m working toward service. To leave notes for myself when I make it to milestones and encouragement when I fall short. That’s pretty much it.

Feel free to read and comment if you’d like. I’m sure that I’ll be linking other blogs that I find inspirational soon.

Oh, to begin with a quick answer to some friends questions.

No. Military members cannot Opt-out of deployment

No. Life does not go back to normal immediately upon return from deployment, I strongly suggest that you check Spousebuzz on Military.com and read about the sacrifices that military families make for us. Deployments have lasting psychological effects and military members still spend much time away from their families, even outside of wartime.

Our military members are not uneducated nor are they overly aggressive or warlike.
Some of the smartest, wisest and kindest people I’ve ever spoken to are in the military as Enlisted and Officers. Remember they took an oath to do and see things hardly imaginable so that you and I can sleep safely at night in a nation where our voice is heard.

No. I doesn’t matter if the deployed person supports the war or not. He or she made an oath to go where they’re told when they’re told. Their personal political views don’t override that.

Working toward service

Bye bye, caffeine

Introductions