After graduation from High School, I was off to basic training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. From there I went to Fort Bliss, Texas for Advanced Individual Training (AIT.) I was there for 9 weeks, and graduated to become a Patriot Missile Crewmember.

My first duty station was at Fort Polk, Louisiana. I was there from December 1994 till May 1996. My entire unit relocated to Fort Bliss, Texas at that time. The Government decided all of Air Defense needed to be in one location. My first rotation to Southwest Asia was from December 1996 till April 1997. We lived in tent city the entire time we were there. The food wasn't the best, but we did have other places to eat.

In December 1997 I reenlisted and chose to be stationed in Germany. In May 1998 I was stationed in Hanau, Germany. As soon I arrived in Germany my unit started going on training exercises to get ready for an evaluation from NATO. We won many awards for our evaluation in October 1998. Just after training all this time we were deployed to Israel in December. I was gone for two weeks and made it home on Christmas Eve. Then December of 1999 I had my second trip to Southwest Asia. This time I got to live in Villas. They were very nice. The food was a little better, but not by much. Once again I arrived back to Germany in April 2000.

I left Germany and headed back to Fort Bliss, Texas in October 2000. I was only stationed there until August 2001 when I got out of the Army. As I was leaving the unit they started training for there rotation for SouthWest Asia.