Check out this post I wrote for City Dads Group! Happy Veterans Day !
military
my last week as an Airman
I submitted my application to retire from the Air Force Reserves on January 12, during my training weekend at Dobbins Air Reserve Base. I knew that on May 13, I’d meet my 4-year commitment to pass on my post-9/11 GI Bill benefits to the children, and that on May 16, […]
Operation Pinch Loaf
Summer 1995, I went to Lackland Air Force Base, Texas for 4 weeks of “Field Training,” which is like Basic Training, but for kids who are in ROTC. I was on a 4-year Air Force ROTC scholarship, and now I had to pay my pittance: we’d get hazed instructed by […]
San Antonio for the 2019 Dad 2.0 Summit
Before this year’s Dad 2.0 Summit, I’d only been to San Antonio with the Air Force. In July 1995, I spent 4 weeks in field training (which is like basic training, but for college kids in ROTC), and all I knew about San Antonio is it was really hot, the […]
A Farewell to Hemingway: my trip to Ketchum, Idaho
Speeding away from Mountain Home AFB and all the structure a day spent with active duty military can bring along US-20 E through high desert and into the Rocky Mountains on a Monday afternoon during business hours felt like the most freedom I’d had in years. The highway wound through […]
What I’ve gained from 20 years in the Air Force
20 years ago today, I was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force through ROTC. I remember how spending the next 4 years serving “active duty” or the next 6 years in the Air Guard or Reserves seemed like an eternity of commitment to “pay back” the entity […]
4 days in Washington, DC for the 5th Dad 2.0 Summit
It’s a week later, and I’m just now feeling coherent enough to type some words about this year’s summit in Washington, DC. The last few years (and the year it was part of Mom 2.0), I’ve helped the conference by being a live blogger, but this year, Doug asked if […]
Thank you, Muhammad
Among the pages of captioned color photographs from my 2003 deployment is one that sticks out. There’s a woman in uniform, not unlike every other picture I have of persons in Iraq. But then there’s this guy. He has no BDU t-shirt or DCU pants; he’s in a white cotton […]