Well, I guess since Bryan is already in Texas and well immersed into his first class, I ought to get this post written. It has only been sitting here in draft form since November 9th. I am such a slacker here lately.

September 28th is the day that changed (or will change, however you want to look at it) our Air Force lives forever. It is the day that we found out that my oncologist was deploying and then separating from the AF when she got back. Why does this matter you ask? Well, Bryan has wanted to retrain for years now and there was always something holding us back. Most recently, it was my medical team. I have a fantastic medical team here and we really didn’t want to jeopardize that. But, with her being my favorite and most important doctor, it was almost as if it was God’s way of saying go for it. Bryan hates being on the maintenance side of things with all the BS that goes on and I hate it because it trickles into our home life constantly. I know, there are no guarantees it will be any better on the ops side, but I really don’t see how it could possibly be any worse.

So, for the next few days we scoured the retraining availability list and job descriptions. We managed to narrow it down to 3 that sounded like the best fit (uav sensor operator, imagery analysis and space something or other) and on October 5th, he submitted his retraining eligibility packet. That came back the next day saying that he was eligible for all three, so now we had to pick one to apply for. UAV sensor operator is one of Bryan’s dream jobs and it is brand new to the AF so he would be getting in pretty much at ground level (the AFSC was just added in January 2009 and the first tech school class just began in August 2009). The next 2 weeks were spent getting all the required medical forms and such that were needed. On October 21st, we submitted the package and on October 26th he was approved and already had class dates! Umm..hello…LOL! When he submitted, it said they had 21 duty days to respond and everyone knows the AF motto is “hurry up and wait”. Not so, this time. Bryan was thrilled, me…I was in total *shock*.

So, now we begin the true journey. Bryan’s first class started at Lackland AFB on November 20th, he’ll be home for Christmas and then his 2nd and 3rd classes are back to back at Randolph AFB starting on January 14th. He’ll finish training in the latter half of March and then we’ll PCS for his 5 level training. The two choices are Holloman AFB, NM and Creech AFB, NV but our only option because of our Q coding (we are coded because of my leukemia) is Creech, so that we can get services at Nellis AFB/Las Vegas.

I am excited now, although these separations suck. I’ll be completely honest, I do not deal well with TDYs/deployments but, what can you do?! It is all a part of being a military family. I am not excited about the uniform change though…LOL! I love ABU’s and hate flight suits. Darn pajamas :). But, Bryan will look good in wings, he deserves them.

Change is all around!

In case you haven’t seen this on TV, this is what Bry will be doing. At the end of the commercial, he would be the guy in the chair on the right.