I don’t have any posts related to my time in the military, so I figured why not.
At 22 after graduating from college, I was trying to figure it out. I was snowboarding and working at BoreaI, which was the sickest, but I wanted a job for the future. I was always a nerd about flying, so I hit up my local Navy recruiter and boom - I was in.
I went to Officer Candidate school in Newport RI in 2017, graduated and moved on to flight school in Pensacola Florida from there. I trained to become an NFO (Naval Flight Officer) for about 3 years and moved through the curriculum - flying the Piper Cherokee, T-6A, and T-45. In the last month of training, one month from completing and moving to the F/18 - I failed. At age 23, the amount of pressure I gave myself in the jet and the imposter syndrome I had was overwhelming. I wasn’t truly ready for what I was doing at the time, and it happens.
I then moved back to Newport RI for a year of Supply Corps School to become a Supply Officer on a destroyer - DDG 115. I moved to San Diego for a few months (which is where I met my incredible wife
@kathyqi_rex ) and then moved to Yokosuka Japan for a year where I finished my time. My Navy career was not the most storied, but it was my life and it happened.
When you are in the military, you are taught to obey what the federal government tells you to do without question. So now that I’m out I’m allowed to state my opinion 🤝 I served with so many awesome women, including
@aelggren who was my first flight partner. She is a badass and objectively smarter, more qualified and confident than I am. That’s why she’s still in and flying jets to this day. What the leader of the DOD just said about women in leadership roles in the military kind of pissed me off. I would without a doubt, absolutely take direction under the leadership of any of the incredibly qualified women I served with. So please, no matter what side you are on - respect the women who have dedicated their lives to selflessly serving this country. This is not a white male only country, it’s an everyone country, and people from all different backgrounds and genders are objectively capable of doing the job. 🤝👊