Anchors Away! A Decade's Journey

     Ten years ago this August we started our Navy journey. Nathan entered into the ROTC program to help cover his tuition to an ivy and provide a job opportunity once he graduated. I was by his side back then at the age of sixteen and a sophomore in high school. 
 2002

2003 ~ For his college years, to me the Navy meant going to balls, hearing him talk of getting up way too early to do physical training, and being apart for several weeks during the summer while he was away training.  I wish these old photos of precious memories were of much better quality.

2004

2005

2006 ~ We got engaged and married.

2007 ~ We both graduated from college. He was commissioned, stationed in VA, and deployed for six months to the Middle East away from his newlywed wife. I greatly enjoyed the privilege of pinning him for the first time along side his grandfather during the ceremony.

2008 ~ This was taken moments before I was reunited with my husband. Looking at this photograph, the chained fence is very symbolic of those six months without him. Even though I was living back home with my amazingly supportive family, surrounding myself with childhood friends, and enjoying the most wonderful job with dear children, the tears flowed and flowed over those months. Living without my best friend of six years and husband of seven months took my breath away at times.

A few months later I was pinning his SWO pin on with a baby on board

I remember I was feeling so sick but knew I would not miss this!

2009

Pinning on his Lieutenant Junior Grade insignia for his promotion.

We traveled to Mississippi for four weeks while he under went training for his new position.

2010- He was in NYC for fleet week and toured ground zero.

2011 ~ Pinning for his promotion to Lieutenant

Our last family photo at our VA home

Our first family photo at our CA rental

2012 ~ We were visiting with friends and family in NJ. This 'uniform' below is most fitting to symbolize his current position in 2012 as he looks like this four days a week at the Naval Postgraduate School and wears his above uniform once a week on Tuesdays.

     Years ago, I remember having a conversation with a childhood friend who was to become a military wife. She asked how I took the ultimate pressure of my husband's profession. My answer then is the same as it is now. God does not lightly choose when he calls His child home to Him, and in that I rest even though the tears still come flowing now. Sometimes I feel that I am a military wife with a quickest recall on the emotions of being a military wife and the drops of saline on my cheeks. My husband is no coward, yet I am such a teary fragile wife at times.

     A few weeks back, a Navy award came in the mail for my husband. As I am the paper filer of the household, he was handing it over to me to put in one of his many Navy boxes and binders. Before he gave it to me, I looked at it over his shoulder as he examined it to make sure that all the correct boxes were checked and all the ts were crossed. And there it was... the phrase... "posthumous heroic" an inch away from his checked box of "meritorious." And the tears came flowing down as I walked away. My husband has not as much as had his little toe stubbed in his five years of reserve service and his five years of active duty service, yet I am a Navy wife who is not the bravest of them all. One inch of space and it meant so much. It meant that he was here with me and his three children living and breathing while another was not with his beloved wife and children.  That I will never forget.