Where It Began . . .

(cue Neil Diamond music, please!)

The first thing everyone says about my decision to join is always: "Why?" Now, I guess everyone who joins the military gets that question but I think maybe I get it a bit more. Few of them ever actually say it out loud but I can hear the rest of the question they leave unspoken: "Why, at your age?"

It's cool, I don't take offense. From most folks "rational" viewpoint, I'm an asshole (and yes, in case you're wondering, The Wife has used that word many times during our pre-joining conversations!) They see a reasonably successful, middle-aged guy, who has spent most of his life waaayyy overweight, sitting about on his ass, and they instantly think "Mid-life crisis!" What the hell do I know? Maybe it is, but I don't really think so. I think it's me finally having the right circumstance to do the only thing that I (and by that I mean ME and not the me other folks wanted me to be.) have ever really wanted to do. It's funny . . . I remember a conversation I had with The Boy a few years back and he asked me if I had anything in my life that I regretted. There was only one thing: "I never got a chance to be a soldier." At the time, I thought my chances were gone, because of my age. Turns out fate had other plans!

Let me back track a bit to give you an insight into how this all played out for me. Let's go back to when Jim was in grade school (picture a pudgy dork with long hair and horn-rimmed glasses, ala 1972 . . . yea, that's the kid!) I had one goal that I kept with me all through my school years. I wanted to attend the Air Force Academy. I wanted to be a pilot. (Fighters, of course . . I was heart broken when I found out my vision would never allow for that!) Well, when I was 14 I left high school (and home . . . if you need details, go back through older posts!) so that ended that plan. My next decision was enlisting in the USMC at 17. I needed parental permission for that and my old man refused . . . he hated the military. He was a disabled Korean War vet and wanted his children nowhere near the service. He spent the next year talking me out of the military life, and I was young enough to listen . . . for a while. My next go-round with the Corps came when I was 20. I met with a recruiter and was all set to head off to MEPS for my medical & swear in. I ran into one problem though - I was dating this fantastic woman who flat-out wanted no part of a military life. This woman (aka: The Wife) was pretty firm on that and I had to make a decision: her or the military. (To be fair, she knew nothing about my intentions, so it wasn't like she gave me an ultimatum or anything. I just knew that choice -at that time- would have ended our relationship. I think I made the right choice there!)

So, I put the entire thing aside, but I still thought about it a lot. I remember when Desert Storm happened, telling The Wife that if the President put out a Call To Service I was going. She wasn't happy, but she understood (sort of!) That didn't happen so again, I put it aside. Then came September 11th, 2001. I don't have words enough to cover that, so I'll just say I decided to join the National Guard and do my part. The enlistment age at the time was 36 (or 38?) and I was only 34 so I figured I was set. Well, fate stepped in again. I had to change jobs and I wasn't in a position where I could leave for an extended period. Just to be sure I got the point, fate threw a second round of cancer at the wife not too long after. By the time I'd cleared all that, I was past the maximum enlistment age. I was disappointed but I figured it was just something that was never meant to be and I moved on with life. Still, it was my one and only regret.

Fast-forward to June of 2006 and I visit the doctor, find out I'm a heart attack/cancer patient/diabetic/corpse waiting to happen and I decide to make some major changes to my life. I become a vegetarian, start losing weight, feeling better overall and that prompts me to start exercising. No biggie, right? Just trying to keep myself alive and have a better life but then something odd happened: in a casual conversation with The Boy, he tells me a buddy of his told him the Army had raised it's enlistment age because of the war. It was just a passing statement, but it caught my attention. I jumped online and voila! The Army is taking old farts like me, up to age 42 and my useless self is only 39 (at the time) woo-hoo! Well, I decide I'll give it one last shot. I didn't tell anyone at first because I didn't see any point. I needed to lose nearly 100 lbs. (yup, you read that right: a one followed by two zeros!) before they'd even consider me. I didn't have the greatest track record when it came to weight loss so I figured why start a ruckus when the chances of making it are so slim?

Well, obviously, not as slim as I thought. With the motivation of finally getting to do this, I kept working out, kept on a careful diet, and dropped enough weight to consider contacting a recruiter. There were a lot of things besides the weight that might have kept me out as well (many of them financial in nature!) and I wasn't getting ahead of myself. I figured I'd leave it up to fate without an argument. If it was meant to be, the dozen or so problems would resolve themselves. If it wasn't, then I'd just shrug and move on, no harm done. Hell, at least I was walking away thinner and healthier, right? Well, what can I say? Every damn thing fell perfectly into place -like a neat row of dominos- and I'm a soldier. (Well, soon to be anyway!)

I guess that gives you the pertinent facts of "how" but I didn't really get to the "why" of things, did I? Oh well, I have to leave myself something to write about in future posts!!!

Later!