As many of you know I was recently commissioned as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy and have entered into a time in my life filled with adventure, excitement, new challenges, moving and all sorts of other stressful things you don't want to hear about.
I hope to use this blog to keep as many of my friends and relatives up to date on where I am in the world, what I'm doing, and what I will be doing soon.
Some of you know plenty about all that is going on, others I haven't had as much direct contact with and have been so busy I haven't gotten a chance to give you the update. So here's a short summary of what has been happening over the last month or so and what I think will happen in the next few weeks.
Late May: With my commissioning date (8June) rapidly approach the Navy finally decided that they would have me working as a Surface Warfare Officer (SWO), earlier in the year they had thought they might be sending me to flight school to train to be a pilot (something I would have been happy to do but being a SWO was my first choice). So suddenly I was going to be getting to do the job in the Navy I had always wanted to do.
A few days later one of my Lieutenant advisers at the UWNROTC unit emailed me a list of about 8 ships and their home ports for me to select my ship from. There were some great pacific ports on the list and several very nice ships on the list. Pretty much from first sight one of the Ships and home ports stood out as a great opportunity. So I quickly decided on USS Sampson (DDG 102) home ported in San Diego, California.
This is a brand new Destroyer that will be commissioned later this year. Along with the excitement of getting a new ship ready for the jobs it will be called a long to do will come many challenges and interesting opportunities.
Early June
With my ship selected, the Navy cut my orders planned for me to leave UW and start heading for my ship in late June. Before I could even start planning for my move I needed to get my commission first.
My family came in town on about June fourth, on June 6th I attended my graduation ceremony from UW's English Department and the celebrations begun. I guess they actually began about four days before when my roommate and I checked out a projector and started watch movies on our front lawn with our friends. But now for the official celebration.
The big ceremony came that Friday, June 8th, when I was officially commissioned in the United States Navy as an Ensign.
My brother-in-law Scott (a Major in the Army) swore me in that morning in front of Drumheller Fountain on the UW Campus.
Later that day we had the big commissioning ceremony on the UW Quad and along with the rest of my class I was sworn in by the Unit's Captain.
Later in the Ceremony my parents replace my Midshipman shoulder boards with my ENS shoulder boards...
and my brothers replaced my cover...
(I promise you I was really happy for some reason I just didn't show it)Then I got my first salute from Chief M. who worked in the Admin. office at our unit and helped me a lot throughout my ROTC days.
And so my Naval career begins.That weekend we had a great BBQ at Magnuson park to celebrate with family and friends.
For about the next week or so I got to relax and recover from all the Grad./commissioning excitement.
Then it was time to start moving and get to work. After several days of furious packing I loaded up my Penske truck and hit the road.
Last Thursday (21Jun) I detached from UW NROTC and set out. Caravaning with my roommate Jon we drove to Yerka California (one classy town by the way).
On Friday we woke up and drove all day to Jon's Parent's home just outside of LA.
It was a long drive but thanks to the Ipod and some entertaining conversation on the tw0-way radios it went pretty quick.
In San Diego I'm going to be living with two of my best friends at UW, Jon and Matt. Both of the guys were in ROTC with me all four years and now I have been fortunate to be stationed with them in SD as well.
Somehow we found this great house on craigslist and on Saturday we went down to look at it. It was about five blocks from Pacific beach and recently remodeled. We knew we had to jump on it quick and so we went ahead and applied for the lease. The landlord quickly figured out we weren't the type of guys that would trash his nice house and soon we were signing the lease. So much sooner than planned we had our new place to live. SWEET!
It looks like we are going to start moving in on Monday.
This post is getting a little long so I am going to go ahead and cut it off now.
I will give everyone the update on my upcoming plan soon.
If you have any questions about all this stuff I just talked about please feel free to ask them in the comments section and I will try to answer them the best I can.
Thank you all so much for your love and support.
