The Saddest Day

To this point in my lfe, I'd say the saddest day I've ever experienced was the day I deployed for a 6-month western Pacific deployment (WESTPAC). Nothing could compare to the feeling of watching my wife on the pier crying while my ship slipped its moorings and headed out into the San Diego Bay.

I joined the Navy in 1991. My brother had joined two years earlier and I was going to enlist with him until I met a beautiful girl. Because of her, I didn't enlist just then.

In June of 1991, I walked into the recruiting station on Broad St. in Philadelphia and took the ASVAB test. A day or two later as I remember, I took the oath. My brother was home from his duty station in Japan and he and his friend, a Navy SEAL watched me say those words that every serviceman does.

I attended boot camp at Great Lakes, IL in August and graduated in October.

I received my orders and returned home. Two days later I married that beautiful girl who I had met two years prior and two days after that we set out for San Diego.

I reported to my ship and was instructed that we would deploy in six months.

We left San Diego in May for a deployment that took us to Hawaii, Okinawa, Singapore, Malaysia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Somalia, Kenya, back to Singapore and Malaysia, Bali, Australia, New Guinea (where we hosted dignitaries celebrating the 50th anniversay of us liberating that island) and back to Hawaii.

I'll never forget watching my wife's face when we left the pier that day. It was the saddest day of my life but I would never change it.

The reason I am writing this is because every day a Soldier, Sailor or Marine does just what I had done. They are leaving mothers, fathers, children and wives to go and fight for the freedom of us and others.

Keep that in mind as you pass a vehicle with a yellow support the troops magnet. Keep that in mind as you go about your everyday life. Keep that in mind as you see a service person in the airport.

They are sacrificing in ways that a majority of American's could never comprehend. Their families are sacrificing along with them.