For a girl who had only been off the East Coast to spend three year’s in Germany as a child, being sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, seemed like a fate worse than death. To me, it was too far from the ocean, too far from every city I loved and too far from anything resembling civilization. And, even worse, smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt. The night I landed at Kansas City’s airport, with all taxi services closed and the only option calling the base and getting the duty NCO to give me a ride, I remember standing there wanting to cry. Talk about stressed out. On top of it, Jeremy was already in California and settling in to his new base, and though we were engaged, I was still very apprehensive as to where our relationship was going.

I arrived on a Friday night, during Labor Day weekend 2003, which meant I had three days before I’d actually be able to meet people, get into my permanent room and get in-processed. And those were three long fucking days. I only knew where the Post Exchange was because it was behind the barracks, I couldn’t find the chow hall (I later learned there was none), I had no TV and no Internet. It was not a good way to start off my next stage in the Army.

Luckily, Tuesday morning came and with it meeting all my new coworkers and the fellow soldiers in my unit. I immediately made some awesome friends and got my first story assignment. I was finally getting the chance to really do what I was trained to and it was amazing. Even better, Jeremy and I decided to bump up the wedding date. He was going to come visit me at the end of the month and we were going to have a justice of the peace marry us so we could take our time in planning the church wedding. I took leave, and on September 24, 2003, Jeremy and I were married at the Leavenworth Court House.

Fort Leavenworth is famously known as the home of the biggest military prison. But it’s also home to the Command and General Staff College. The installation essentially looks like a college campus, since the prison set very far back from the main area of post. On top of that, it’s only 30 minutes from Kansas City, which meant there was always something to do. Fort Leavenworth is also a non-deploying base, so it’s a pretty easy gig if you can get it.

As soon as I was married, I started working on getting myself reassigned so I could live closer to Jeremy. I spent a year at Leavenworth and had an amazing time. I met so many amazing people, many of which I’m still friends with even now. Jeremy and I visited when we could and I filled up the rest of my free time hanging out with friends and going back to school. I even finally learned how to drive a stick shift. At work, I wrote stories, some fun some boring, one so good I even won an honorable mention from the Kansas Press Association, which was at the time the highlight of my so-far short journalism career.

Once I had been there for 6 months, I was able to put in paperwork to be transferred to Fort Irwin, California. At the time, I had an amazing branch manger and with a few phone calls, I was on orders to leave Kansas just short of a year after I had first landed there. This led to fears of the unknown, just like any change of station does. Even moreso, though, because I was on my way to a deploying unit. On top of that, Jeremy was working on getting reassigned to the Marine base right near Fort Irwin, so suddenly I was going to have to actually be a wife. While at Leavenworth, I acted married and said I was married, but I still wasn’t living with him and having to do wifely things like cook and clean and actually have to live with his habits (and have him live with mine), so it was again a scary and exciting time. And it was a happy and sad time. Sad, because again I had to leave close friends who had become important to me, but happy because I was finally going to see my husband more than once a month. Little did I know how much things would change when I got to Fort Irwin.