Megan's Short Stop: Justin Joins the Army

If you haven't heard already, Justin has enlisted in the Army and took his oath today and will be shipping out to Fort Jackson, South Carolina early tomorrow morning.

(His "before" boot camp picture)

How and when did this all happen? Justin has thought about joining the service for a couple of years now. At first I was totally against it, but he kept looking into it and thought of a few jobs he was interested in. He knew, however, that if he was going to join, he wanted to do it after he had graduated from college so that he could go in with a higher ranking. After he started to convince me of how great an opportunity this would be for our family, I decided to seriously consider it and ask more and more questions as they came up. Justin did a lot of research as well as talking to recruiters and would answer the questions I had for him. Finally, after learning that our housing, food, and medical benefits would be paid for, I was practically sold. The only major concern I had was, what would his job be in the army.

He came up with a few positions, and after learning that there weren't many opportunities open for those positions, he researched the position of Cryptologic Linguist. The recruiter he was talking with was a Cryptologic Linguist, which was helpful since he was able to get more insight into that position.

Here is his job description as found on GoArmy.com:

"A cryptologic linguist is primarily responsible for identifying foreign communications using signals equipment. Their role is crucial as the nation’s defense depends largely on information that comes from foreign languages." Read more about it here if you're interested.

Justin will have the opportunity to learn a new language (as if speaking Spanish & English wasn't enough), and will be serving for 5 years. As I mentioned above, he will be shipped off to Fort Jackson, South Carolina for 10 weeks for boot camp, and will be home for the majority of December before heading off to beautiful Monterrey for 53 weeks in January where he will train to become a cryptologic linguist. Don't worry, he will be here for the baby's birth!

We don't get to go with Justin while he is off at boot camp so it's going to be a rough 10 weeks, but I know that JD and I can do it. Justin left us for 2 months last year in order to do his internship with the Modesto Nuts, so I'm pretty sure we can handle it again for another 2 1/2 months. I feel like I've been prepared for this, as Justin and I did the whole long distance thing while we dated, while we were engaged, and when he left for his internship. I know that we can get through anything, and I'm grateful that this time I am closer to family, and have such a great Ward.

I'm grateful for the big sacrifice Justin is making right now to leave us and endure 10 weeks of crazy and intense training, and I know that it will all be worth it in the end.

JD is surprisingly doing really well (for the moment at least). I'm not exactly sure if he understands what's going on just yet, but right now, it almost feels as if Justin has been gone for the night for baseball, except for the fact that he won't be coming home at the end of the night anymore. Justin actually had to report to the Modesto Army center yesterday at noon to take a shuttle to Sacramento. After we had dropped him off, I came home and cried (all thanks to pregnancy hormones, of course) and JD hugged me and asked if I was OK. He then asked if I was on Time Out. That kid knows how to cheer me up. I know JD looks up to his dad and will soon realize that dad won't be home for a little while, but I know he'll get through it.

I am so proud of Justin, and cannot wait until these 10 weeks are over!! I know he will succeed at anything he puts his mind to. We love and miss you so much!!