National Guard Gains a Great Soldier

It's not official yet, but it's pretty close. Today Christopher is submitting all of his paperwork to join the Army National Guard. He's joining their "College First" recruitment program, and is not supposed to get deployed until two years of college are complete. They will also grant him a deferment to serve a church mission, as his older brother Justin is starting next month.

Christopher is interested in a career in helicopter aviation, whether that be as pilot, mechanic, or whatever. He is a straight-A student most of the time (and certainly ALL of the time when he wants to be), and excels in all of his classes; he does very well in his Auto Tech class, and loves working on cars, lawn mowers... anything mechanical.

But above all else, Christopher is intensely patriotic. He loves his country, and no matter what conflicts we're in... no matter who is Commander in Chief... no matter what the risks... Christopher wants to serve his country. He will be with a unit of the Idaho National Guard, and his first weekend exercises could be as early as next month. He will go through Basic Training as soon as he graduates high school in May, and then will go through his AIT for his specific MOS. Man... the military is full of TLAs!!!

As you can imagine, Michelle and I have discussed this at length with Christopher. We've spoken with many soldiers. We've analyzed all options. Nervous that Army National Guard would certainly result in an eventual deployment to Iraq, we brought this up with Christopher. His reaction? "So... there are bad people out there that need to be dealt with and ideals that need to be fought for; somebody has to do it."

We are very proud of Christopher for all of his ambitions, his desire to serve, and to always strive to do the right thing. We'll keep you posted, and probably most importantly, we'll be sure to post a picture of him when he's all handsome in uniform. :-)