I joined the Navy just out of high school in 2007 where I was trained and became part of a small community known as the U.S. Navy Seabees. Little did I know less than two years into my Navy career, on January 2nd, 2009, I would be faced with the realities of war and forced to make a decision that has forever changed my life. No amount of military training or mental fortitude can prepare a person for the realities of war and the choice I had to make. You hear about it on the news, read it in the papers, listen to veterans and their war stories, but you will never get the feelings so many veterans and I have experienced unless you have been to war and forced to make such drastic, split second judgement calls.

My six month deployment started …show more content…
My platoon consisted of 25 Seabees ranging from E-3 (Constructionman) up to E-7 (Chief Petty Officer). During this initial phase of our deployment, we were tasked with the construction of five Berthing Huts (B-Hut) otherwise known as living quarters. We were currently living in tents; they must have been the first to be put up at the beginning of the war because of how rundown they were. But this is what the Seabees is known for, adapting to any situation and getting the job done in record time not mater the setbacks. Which is exactly what we did, we got all five B-Huts built in just a couple of …show more content…
We all came back together at FOB Shank to begin our next project. The FOB was expanding and we were tasked with the expansion project. There was only one little kicker to this project, the expansion was not on the main FOB grounds, it was across the main highway at “Site B”. So every day, twice a day we had to get on all our gear, load our rifles and walk across the highway to get to and from the job site. This was not typical for Seabees, even though we go through hours of training we usually stay “inside the wire”. Just like with any task we always exceed expectations and get the job done no matter the hurdle and this was no