Comments:
Most of you know my story by now but I will provide the Readers Digest Condensed version for those that have been out of contact living in a cave in the Tora Bora complex or on Mars (Hey with our class you never now where you will find a classmate). I joined the National Guard while in High School so I could pay for college but after 2 semesters at UCA the administration and my parents decided that a Major in Crown Royal and Napping was not in the best their best interests so I wound up volunteering for Desert Shield/Storm and found out that I like the Active Duty life but I wasn’t willing to give up my rank in order to go into the Active Army so I went back to the farm. I kicked around for a while working whatever jobs I could and found the Active side of the National Guard and the rest, as they say, is history. I spent the next 20 years working for the guard in supply and administration positions but had several different Military Occupational Specialties along the way. I became a Combat Engineer for a while and that was probably one of the most enjoyable jobs I did. I was a team leader for an Assault and obstacle team and we cleared anything that was obstructing a route. For those that know me well at all it will come as no surprise that I enjoyed breaking stuff and making things go from together to apart. I had several overseas training assignments and 2 combat Tours to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. In May 2012 I left the guard for retirement and returned to UCA to complete my Bachelors Degree in Sociology/Criminology with a Minor in Anthropology.
My wife Gwenn and I met in 2010 prior to my 2011 deployment to Iraq and were married in 2012. Together we have 5 Kids, 1 English bulldog and 1 Great Dane that thinks she is a lap dog. When you meet her and are around us for a short period of time you will swear she had to have gone to school with us because we act like we have known each other for our whole lives.
Do to the stress of military life I had let myself go and gained a ton of weight throughout the years. I have recently lost over 50 pounds and have just completed my second Sprint Triathlon with several more on the schedule for the remainder of the summer.
