Our Dual Air Force Life
by Ann C
The day we met, October 18, 1999 started out as most October mornings in Great Falls, Montana do bitter cold and overcast. My flight from the 490th Missile Squadron was scheduled to tour the weapon storage area. This was supposed to be my day off and truth be told I really didn’t want to be there, but there I was waiting with 17 guys for a maintenance lieutenant to give us a spiel about processing the warheads. Although we had taken different paths to commissioning, he joined Fresno State’s ROTC after his enlisted time was complete and I joined the ROTC program at the New Jersey Institute of Technology after a few months at the Air Force Academy Prep School, somehow the fates aligned and our two seemingly divergent paths collided in the middle of nowhere. Two months after our first meeting we were engaged, just shy of knowing each other for nine months we were married and three months later we PCS’d, not your typical first year of marriage, but somehow our marriage survived and this summer we will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. Throughout our marriage we have competed against each other for CGO of the quarter, promotion to Major and now promotion to Lt Col. This year however has been the hardest yet, he is currently deployed and upon his return, he will PCS while I stay in place. Together we’ll have to decide where our children aged 5 and 2 will live based upon which parent will have the most stable schedule. This is the first time our dual military careers will cause our family to live apart; but neither of us would choose a different career path. We are just another Air Force family doing what we need to.