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By Alyssa, July 27, 2010 7:22 pm

Start at the beginning by clicking here.

Sitting in the back of the auditorium during an Advanced Biochemistry lecture, I realized I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore.  I wish this epiphany would have surfaced during my first semester of college or my second, even my third semester when I barely passed Genetics 101.  Nope.  I held out and C minus-ed my way to my 4th semester of college, just before spring break of my sophomore year.  I wasn’t a quitter and hated my way through all of the classes until I just couldn’t hate it anymore.

I left that class early, made an appointment with my advisor, and told her I would be dropping the remainder of my pre-med classes.  She put up a little fight.  If I finished that semester I would have a Chemistry minor. I was adamant and told her I couldn’t do it one more day, not even one more class.  After she agreed, I called my ROTC advisor and started the paperwork to change majors.  Unlike other majors at that time, an ROTC student commits in writing to be a future Army doctor.  The Army accepted my change of major, instead of a Pre-medical Biology major with an English minor, I would now pursue an English-Writing major.

After changing majors I left for spring break.  My roommate and fellow band member, Amy, invited me to her home in Phoenix.   I celebrated the week of freedom by relaxing next to her parents backyard pool and reading a non-academic book, “Kissed Dating Goodbye”.  The book convinced me I could maintain friendships with men until I was ready to get married, which wasn’t anytime soon.  On the plane ride back, I felt relief. Haus was my best friend and I was determined to keep it that way.  Amy’s parents agreed to host the “Babes,” my girl band, for the summer and I couldn’t wait to hang out with my best friends for a few months.  Everything was going exactly as I planned. Well, until I got back to school the end of March.

Sunday night after spring break I got a phone call from a buddy in ROTC.  Although we agreed earlier in the spring semester to pay a lower ticket price and escort each other to the Military Ball, he wanted to back out as he asked a girl he had just started dating.  Hanging up the phone, I glanced over at the blue evening gown I bought in Phoenix and slumped on the couch.  Before I could think about who might go with me, I heard a thud, thud, thud at the door.  That knock could only be one guy, I thought, as I jumped up and opened my dorm room door.

This moment remains a permanent picture in my mind today.  Haus smiled from outside of my room saying, “Welcome Back.”  His fresh tan from a family trip to Mexico perfectly complimented his beaming smile and hazel eyes.  He asked me if I’d eaten dinner and, before I could respond, led me to his car.  A few minutes later we were sitting across from each other in a Jack in the Box booth near campus.

“I think we should date,” he said finally.

“Say that again?” I said in between mouthfuls of a Sourdough Jack.  Finishing my bite, I laughed and said, “Sure, sure, now you want to date.”  He couldn’t be serious after almost a year of the “let’s-just-be-friends” bit.

Looking at me with an incredibly handsome face, he said, “I was talking to my friends and I can’t think of any reason why we shouldn’t be dating.”  I let him continue as I repeated in my head kissed dating goodbye, kissed dating goodbye, oh man he’s gorgeous, kissed dating goodbye.  ”We didn’t date to begin with because of Cowboy being your ex, but he’s not even a close friend of mine anymore and I…”  He trailed off before grabbing my hand, “I want to be more than just your friend.”

Gulping I tried to remain strong as thoughts zoomed in and out.  He’s your friend.  You don’t need a boyfriend.  He’s amazing.  He’s everything you’ve every wanted in a boyfriend.  Dating would complicate everything.  Dating would give you someone to wear that blue gown for.  Dating would be incredible.  Stop, stop, he’s your friend.  I heaved in a breath before responding.  ”I think we should stay friends,” I exhaled.

I’ll continue this soap opera… errr, I mean my story in the next post.  To be continued…

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By Alyssa, April 20, 2010 7:08 am

Bubba, my inquisitive 4.5 year old, asked me several times today if I used to be a princess and if his Daddy fought a dragon to marry me.  Maybe he’s seen Sleeping Beauty one too many times.  Although Hubby didn’t battle a dragon, Bubba reminded me that it’s about time I told the story of boy meets girl, or boy meets Army girl in my case.

You should probably start at the beginning so if you haven’t already, click here.

I actually met Hubby in a freshman orientation seminar.  How could I forget that 6’5″ gang-banger-wanna-be with six earrings, a baseball cap cocked to the side, basketball shorts sagged almost down to touch the tops of his knee-high blue soccer socks, and Birkenstocks to finish off his look.  He will tell you to this day I wasn’t looking much better in my preppy-Mc-prepperson outfit.

I may have met Hubby the first day of school, but I became friends with him by dating his best friend, Cowboy.   It’s horrible to admit, but while I was dating Cowboy I kinda couldn’t help but think that his best friend was pretty darn cute.  Haus, aptly nicknamed as he was built like a house, made a major impression on me.  Not only was he handsome, funny, and entertaining, he was extremely intelligent.  Pre-engineering football player?  Don’t find those every day.

Wait. Stop.  I know what you’re thinking.

I dropped Cowboy like a sack of Idaho potatoes and skipped over to new boyfriend, Haus, at the beginning of my sophomore year, right?  Like the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books I read as a kid, I would have loved to skip a few chapters back to “Happily Ever After.”  Haus had other plans.  In between my ROTC commitments and his football practices, we spent almost every day together and I thought for sure he was falling for me.   Late one night in September, however he told me no.  It happened right after I brought up where he saw us going, naturally in between flipping my blonde hair and batting my eyelashes.  He gently shared how great he thought I was, but firmly stated he would never betray his friendship with Cowboy.  We would have to remain friends.

Friends?  FRIENDS?  I, of course, told him that was what I wanted too, but behind closed doors I lamented to my roommate.  Who did this guy think he was?  You see, I considered myself pretty persuasive up to that point and had never really had a boy tell me, “I like you, but let’s be friends.”    Even weirder, he still wanted to hang out with me, you know, like friends do.  I was totally confused.  When I had used that “friends” line, more times than I’d like to admit, it meant, “See ya later and probably not ever.”  Several times a week, Haus still knocked on the door and ducked into my basement retreat to study or invite me to dinner at the dining facility.

As the year continued, I dated off and on, as did he, but we confided in each other as we faced problems in our dating relationships.  It almost broke my heart when he told me he was falling for someone that lived on my hall and I remember telling a new boyfriend that I would have to see if my brother, Haus, approved of the new relationship.  Looking back it all seems so confusing.  Haus dating someone, me dating someone else, while at the same time deepening our friendship with each other.  Oh, and did I mention I was still going to school?

My sophomore year meant harder ROTC commitments and I struggled every day in my pre-med classes.  By March, I was exhausted.  I knew I loved a couple things.  Hanging out with Haus, the few English Writing courses I was taking, and singing with my girl band (Yep, I was in a chick band which I will have to write about later).  I also really liked the increased challenges in ROTC, but felt like the one thing I dreaded was my major.  Biology.  Pre-medical school Biology.  Did I really want to be a doctor in the Army?  Something had to give.

To Be Continued…

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By Alyssa, February 5, 2010 4:20 pm

Missed the first part of the story?  Start here.

Let’s just call him, “Cowboy.”  I met him through a girlfriend, my next door neighbor in the dorm.  I’ll never forget our first date that went a little like this:

Me (nonchalantly trying not to study his football physique):  You know I’m in ROTC right?
Cowboy: Yeah, that’s cool.  My dad was in the military for awhile.  He enlisted.
Me:  No way!  My dad’s in now.  I guess we’re both Army brats.
Cowboy: Uh-huh.  I think it’s awesome that you’re going to serve our country.  I’d love to hear more about what you do in ROTC.  Wow, your eyes are beautiful.  You’re the most incredible woman I’ve ever met.  Want to go out tomorrow?

O.K., so I may be exaggerating our first conversation a bit.  The chances of meeting an Army brat at a private Christian Liberal Arts college were pretty slim and my brain turned off after I made that connection.  Cowboy escorted me to my first military ball and, of course in only a week or two, I was sure we were made for each other.  I pushed aside about a hundred reasons why we weren’t exactly compatible and convinced myself that our common background would keep us together.  Two weeks into the summer after our freshman year when I hadn’t received a call from him, I thought, hmmm, he must be busy.  After two months with little to no correspondence, I crossed “Mr. and Mrs. Cowboy” out of my journal and broke it off.

Remember what it was like breaking up with someone at nineteen?  Cowboy was only my second real boyfriend and my heart told me I’d lost my only chance at a guy that could brave dating an Army girl.  I came back to college that fall determined not to make the same mistakes again. Knowing about the Army and wanted to spend your life around it are two very different things.  I concentrated on my studies and decided I didn’t come to college to get my M.r.s.  My second year of ROTC was substantially harder than the first.  Gone were the days of learning left face and forward march.  Sophomore year marked my first year of “Ranger Challenge,” an extracurricular addition to my ROTC classes.  Although not mandatory, participation in the Ranger Challenge weekly practices and final competition were “highly recommended,” a phrase I would become very familiar with in the military.

Instead of just driving down for my physical fitness sessions in the morning, I also spent my afternoons after Whitworth classes practicing grenade tosses, weapon drills, and rope bridge assembly.  My all-female team would practice for two months before competing against other female cadet teams in the Northwest. With over 120 cadets in the Gonzaga ROTC program, only 15 or so were women.  I had a few females in my ROTC class, but during Ranger Challenge I spent dedicated time with almost all of the females in the program.  I didn’t realize it then but the relationships I built during those practices proved invaluable throughout the rest of my ROTC career.

I remember coming back from those physical practices exhausted and sweaty.  Heads would turn as my black boots clicked on the Whitworth dining hall floor and I’m pretty sure I was the only one eating with mud stains all over their clothes.  I was definitely the only one in camo.  Rangers helped me move from being embarrassed about who I was becoming to pridefully accepting my new role.  I have to add the other benefits of my intimidating outfit.  Although we became friends later on, the first time I met Cowboy’s new girlfriend, we happened to be in the same area of the dining hall and I caught her uneasily glancing at my muddy t-shirt and rappel rope.

Things were going pretty well that year, despite some nasty rope bridge bruises, and I wish I could say my “no-need-for-a-boyfriend” ideals were holding strong.  I was great for about 5 minutes, and then the football team walked by.

To Be Continued…

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By Alyssa, December 21, 2009 11:30 pm

Missed the first part of the story?  Start here.

It only took a week or two before the novelty of college FREEEEDOOOMM (said with Mel Gibson gusto) wore off.  After playing ping pong until 3 a.m. several nights in a row with my newfound friends, I started to wonder why I was the only one getting up two hours later to exercise.  I learned quickly that Army physical fitness was not a “how about a few sit-ups and jokes around the weight set?” kind of deal either.  I came to the Gonzaga ROTC program barely able to complete 15 “knee” push-ups and within two months could easily knock out 40 real ones.  I froze my rear end off running along the Spokane River Walk, began my lifetime loathing of flutter kicks (an evil, EVIL ab exercise), and kind-a started to feel tough.

I launched into my leadership education about the time my skinny arms developed muscle and I discovered the art of calling cadence (One, Two, Three, and a Quarter… Somebody, Anybody, Get me some water!).   Along with attending my other academic classes, I drove to Gonzaga three times a week for ROTC classes and outdoor lab.  Quite a switch in thinking to study core theology concepts in the morning and react to an ambush in the afternoon.

I wish I could say that education was the only thing on my mind those first few months of college, but my journal tells a different story.  To be honest, my journal is a little embarrassing.  I recently thumbed through the pages of September 1997 to March 1998 and prayed two things today: 1. Please don’t let my sons ever find this boy-crazy-nonsense  2. If I ever have a daughter, please remind me of these journal entries when she goes through her boy-crazy-nonsense.  No kidding, every other entry in my diary detailed some new dude I’d met and fallen for.

After sifting through too many pages of nauseating twitter-pation, I did find one or two heart felt entries. One on Valentine’s Day, February 1998, read: “I miss home, but where is home?  I stress about school and ROTC and grades and money.  I guess this is what real life is like.  I’m so lonely.”  At that point in my life I wanted to belong so much and unfortunately equated belonging to having a boyfriend.  To make matters worse, a pattern emerged with every new boy I met.  Initial attraction became clumsy friendship and then, boy learned that girl was more than girl, girl was ARMY girl, POOF, boy chased other girl. Almost every male interest I met my freshman year viewed me as not just a girl, but an Army girl.  In my experience, those nineteen-year-old boys thought my combat boots were intriguing from far away, but intimidating within reach.  I had just broken up with the only boy I thought would understand my military call with no replacement in sight.

I decided not to date anyone within the ROTC program, despite a crush or two I kept on some of them.  Early on, I joked that there was enough Army in me for whoever I dated and kind of stuck to that thought.  In April 1998, however, I became a desperate.  I needed a date to my first military ball and couldn’t think of anyone that would be up for it.  The annual Gonzaga ROTC gala was a tough sell. Hey Whitworth guy, wanna go to a fancy dinner and dance where you won’t know anyone except me and all the other guys will be in tough Army greens?  No wonder men weren’t lining my dorm hallway begging to be my date.

I was just about to break my “no-Army-dating” rule and ask another cadet, when I met him.  Tall, dark, and handsome, a Whitworth football player, and fellow Army brat, he seemed to good to be true.

To be continued…

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By Alyssa, December 10, 2009 11:20 pm

If you missed the first segment of “My Story” read this post first.

College.  Oh, wonderful, amazing, exhilarating college.  I counted down my high school days on the cover of a three-ring binder for almost a year vying to make it to that first day of college.  All three siblings and my parents drove me to Spokane, Washington for the drop-off.  My stomach knotted with excitement almost all seven hours of the trip.  Fresh off of the forty-acre farm, Spokane appeared to be a metropolis.  Whitworth College, a relatively small liberal arts campus tucked into the wooded north end of the city, seemed huge to me.  I spent my first few days on campus gaping at everything I saw, looming pine trees, stately brick buildings, people… so many people.

I remember it all happening so fast.  I piled my stuff into a cinder-block dorm room, met my fantastic freshman roommate, and toured the campus in almost a single breath. Before I knew it, I was hugging my brothers and sister and waving to my parents as they headed back home.  I’ll admit my confidence vanished watching their maroon-striped suburban leave the parking lot.  My eyes flooded with tears and I barely made it back to my new room before breaking down.  Why was I so determined to get out of Idaho and leave small-town life behind?  I blotted my puffy cheeks reminding myself that at least my boyfriend settled in the building.  Mr. Hometown lived three floors up in the same dorm.

Freshman initiation began as I pushed the homesickness aside and humiliated myself wearing pigtails and a men’s necktie around campus, a Whitworth tradition.  Mr. Hometown and I saw little of each other as we prepared for classes and met new friends.  I had almost forgotten about my Army scholarship in the initiation chaos and, a week after settling in, made my first drive down to Gonzaga University for uniforms and inprocessing. Although I attended Whitworth, their ROTC students fulfill scholarships by attending classes on the main Gonzaga campus.  Little did I know how many times I would soon make that fifteen minute drive south to the impressive College Hall, one of Gonzaga’s oldest buildings.

After my uniform fitting, I rushed back to the dorm to model the camo outfit for my new dorm girlfriends. “You have to show your boyfriend!” they exclaimed as I clumsily attached every Army gadget I’d recently acquired onto my body.  Striding up the three stories, I knocked firmly at Mr. Hometown’s room. “SURPRISE!” I yelled as he swung open the door.  Then it happened.  He looked at me and I searched his face as my smile slowly faded.  ”Wow” he said, trying to appear enthusiastic.  ”Yeah,” I stuttered softly, “I, uh, just got the uniforms and wanted to show you. Gotta start going to physical training early in the morning too.” He avoided eye contact as I muttered a few things before drifted back down to my room.  ”Well?” the girls asked expectantly in the hall when I returned. I smiled shyly and headed for my door, “He likes it I think, but, uh… I better change.”

It only took a week or two before Mr. Hometown and I were through.  He said that he wanted to be with me and that we could make it work, but it was in that moment, his first glance at my camouflaged fatigues, that I knew otherwise.  We had discussed my Army commitment and talked about the possibilities, but I don’t think it was real for either of us until I stood before him in uniform.  I broke-up with my first love and realized then that being in the Army might not be as easy for me as I thought it would be.

To be continued…