You see girls…nagging does work! I asked Steve like a BAZILLION times to write a short story for Addisyn (and the rest of our future soccer team) about our love story. He enjoys writing like I mentioned here and I think our love story pretty much ROCKS like I mentioned here. Plus, I think it is a very cool legacy to pass on to our children as they get older. Wouldn’t it be great if they knew how it all got started?
Leave it to me to push this one off on Steve. There are a lot of details that I have yet to mention to you that Steve will tell you about (from his perspective of course) and I love that my man remembers and cherishes the same things about the beginning of our relationship, but words it a little more eloquently than I would. Go ahead, babe!
P.S. A new chapter will come out every Thursday to bring the blog post frequency up to TWO a week…(whoah…who is motivated now?)
The Air Force is a gamble. You might think you have a choice, but ultimately whatever the Air Force needs you to do or wherever the Air Force needs you to be is what you’re doing and where you’re going. Period. I understand this calling now and am proud to serve my country, but in 2003, when I joined as a young and naïve 21 year old, I was caught thinking I might have a say in my future.
It was the second week of Basic Military Training (BMT) and I probably had a combined total of 35 hours of sleep since I’d arrived. I was waiting in line with the rest of my flight to fill out a piece of paper which was accurately labeled a “dream” sheet. That’s right…waiting. The less exciting side of BMT is standing at attention for hours with your eyes straight forward and hands pinned to your sides waiting to fill out ten minutes of paper work. Normally, I would use these precious hours to continue my training in upright, wide eyed slumber, but not today. I knew the selections I put on my dream sheet were going to be those that molded the future of my Air Force career. When I finally got to the front of the line I was wired and ready to go.
There were two sets of lists in this process. The first was a list of five military jobs I would like to have. It’s not exact, but my list went something like this:
1) The guy who trains the Astronauts
2) The guy who plays video games like in the commercials
3) The guy who wears a ten foot tall robot suit like in the video games
4) Maybe just the guy in the commercial pretending to play video games?
5) Top Secret Detective
I turned the list into the powers that be, spun the wheel of Air Force placement and…I was coded as an aircraft avionics specialist. Bummer. I know it sounds cool, but it doesn’t have the same pizzazz as a top secret video game expert who gets to moonlight as an astronaut training robot detective now does it? Air Force – 1, Steve – 0. The second list was the actual dream sheet. Here I was to list five places where I would like to be stationed. Even though my job wasn’t what I’d expected, at least I’d be living in style. Let’s see if they can get it right this time…my list:
1) Hawaii (let’s face it, there’s a base there and it would be awesome)
2) California (I’m from Cali and was feeling home sick already! Wouldn’t have minded to be back home with the fam)
3) Italy (enough said)
4) Florida (I’ve never been there, but heard Will Smith sing a song about Miami that made it sound dynamite)
5) Guam (Ok, I didn’t know where this was at the time, but it was so much fun to say that I had to put it on there)
I handed in the list and awaited the results. Drum roll… Survey said! – Dover, Delaware. Ouch. That stings Air Force…I trusted you. I need to be honest, I didn’t know where Delaware was either (thanks fifth grade geography, what happened to you?), but I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to feature Miami or Will Smith so I was completely devastated. How could my dreams of commercial stardom in Honolulu rise and fall so quickly? Air Force, what did I ever do to you?
After completing basic training and my four months of technical school (none of which involved even the slightest bit of sleuthing), I caught a plane out of Dallas headed into Philadelphia. I was met at the airport by a pleasant Senior Airman woman with a sweet smile and a comforting demeanor. She was stationed at Dover and had volunteered to pick me up from the airport. Her name was Selena. When we got into the city of Dover, she showed me all of the places I would need to know.
“Ok, Steve, this is the bar where everyone meets on Thursday nights.” She said, as we passed a restaurant that looked like a small house. “This one by the lake is where all of the college kids hang out on Fridays and have trivia night if you’re into that.”
At that time of my life I was into that, but I wasn’t into being in Delaware. I smiled and nodded at each of the venues, but inside I knew they wouldn’t be featuring anything with bead throwing or cruise ships so I mentally checked out. Of all the places I could have gone, it looked like I’d be letting loose in the house that Abe built or on the shore of Lake Boredom. After our tour of the town, Selena finally took me on base and dropped me off at billeting. I would be staying in a hotel room for a couple of days because the squadron was still working on getting me into a dorm.
“See you at 0630 at the check in counter. Work starts at 0700. Welcome to Dover.” She said and drove away.
There I was, finally at my mandated duty station with nothing to my name, but 50 bucks in the bank, a suit case full of uniforms, a gym bag packed with clothes, and a pocket full of shattered dreams. After I checked into my room and unloaded my belongings (which took all of about five minutes), I lay atop the covers of the stiff hotel mattress with my fingers crossed behind my head. I tried to recall the series of decisions from my California enlistment to my flight into Philli. I remembered saying goodbye to my mom with tears in her eyes and hoping she would understand that I had no other choice but to leave the mess I’d made and find a new beginning somewhere else. I thought about the dream sheet and how much better life would have been if I was lying on a hammock in Maui drinking a Mai Tai. I even thought about my friends back home and wondered how often I’d get to see them now that I was on the other side of the country. As I looped the timeline in my head, one question that continued to resurface was, “Why the heck did I end up in Delaware?” … Little did I know that tomorrow I’d meet the woman who would be the answer to that very question.
Come back this Thursday for the next chapter of One More for Love: The Story. God Bless – Steve
Yay to my mini photo shoot from this afternoon – Brittany and Christian are a married couple and are totally in love. It was so much fun hanging out with them this afternoon and I am so excited about these pics!
With Love,
Stacy Hart
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