>> If I had known that I was going to join the military when I was in school,
I probably would have tried to transfer to a school which had ROTC
so that I could at least get college paid for.
But it was really a spur of the moment kind of thing.
I was coming up to - as I was graduating, the military was just kicking off or just finishing
up the surge for both Afghanistan and Iraq.
And so that was something as a Poly Sci major, those were, of course,
things we were talking about a lot.
And it just kind of got - it got the gears turning in my head.
And I decided that that was something that I felt very strongly that I wanted
to be a part of and participate in.
And so I graduated in December of 2007.
And January 28, I was on a bus to Fort Benning, Georgia.
So went right in.
I was at Fort Benning for about a year, maybe a little bit less
for just the general training-basic training,
Officer Candidate School, the Infantry Officer Course.
And then after that I went to Germany.
And I lived in Western Germany at my duty station, my unit,
which was the 170th Infantry Brigade.
And then from Germany, we deployed to Afghanistan for a year, 2010-2011.
And then went back to Germany.
And then in 2012 said, you know, I had had sort of my share and came back home.
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