Army Life/JAG Wife?

A lot of people don’t know a whole lot about my fiancé Milton and his background.  When he was in high school, he wanted to work in a hospital, but he was too young.  So, he volunteered.  Most weekends, he spent hours upon hours volunteering in the emergency room.  The doctors and nurses were so impressed by his work that at the end of his senior year, they offered to pay for his entire college experience if he graduated in four years or less.  And he did.  Although he thought he wanted a career in medicine, he soon found a passion for the law.

In May of last year, Milton graduated with a Masters Degree in Bioethics and a Law Degree.  With the recession, many of his law school buddies were not offered jobs.  Milton applied to various law firms and legal opportunities.  One of those was the US Army JAG Corps.  I didn’t know what that was, but after watching the tv show JAG and the movie “A Few Good Men” I now know they are the lawyers of the military.

Last April, he found out he was one of 100 people selected in the US for his class.  When he first told me about it, I was mad because I felt our relationship wouldn’t have time to grow if he was away.  We talked until 6:00am one morning about whether the relationship could work.  Luckily, though, his training didn’t start for 15 months after he was selected so we had plenty of quality time.

So, for most of our relationship I’ve had to contemplate being an Army wife and what this could mean for my own life.  Where would we live?  What would I do?  When would we have kids? The first step is Milton being gone for six months for training in both VA and GA.  I will definitely miss my new husband, but we will still get to see each other some.

Well, three weeks ago Milton got “The Email”.  That’s the email where he was given a list of about 25 places and told to select his top 8 in order for where he would like to serve/live his first two years.  Places like Hawaii and Europe were on the list.  So were places like the middle of nowhere.  We put our list together, emailed it in and hoped for the best.

They started notifying people of their post in order of their last name.  Milton is a “T”.  We read on their Facebook page as others talked about where they were going.  Most were receiving their 5^th or 6^th choice.  I got a little nervous, but hoped for the best – and then Milton got the call!

And guess what?  He got the #1 choice on our list!  So, after Milton does six months of training starting over the summer we’ll be headed for two years to _________________…..

Ahhh, I betcha want to know!  You’ll have to wait a little while longer to know where we’ll be because we are making the announcement at our wedding this weekend!  Wedding countdown – 2 days!