Milestones

Age 3 - First date, Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Age 5 - First (and only) broken bone(s), right forearm. First time outside the US (3 years, six or seven countries).

Age 6 - First stitches at the ER, West Berlin, Germany.

Age 9 - First memorable death in the family; great-grandfather. Wish to God I'd had time to know him better.

Age 12 - First fight; very short, Woodland Park, Colorado.

Age 14 - First inkling of sexual awareness.

Age 14 - First, last, and only time I laid hands on a girl/woman; punched my sister in the face. Hard.

Age 16 - First car wreck; first speeding ticket. Less than 10 months apart, both in Colorado Springs.

Age 17 - First kiss & sexual experience with a girl, Parents divorce.

Age 18 - Entered college.

Age 19 - First Major League Baseball Game; Braves vs. Rockies at Mile High Stadium. Left college, enlisted.

Age 20 & 11.5 months: First time drunk, ever - Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Age 22: First road trip over 1000 miles - coastal North Carolina to Colorado Springs; 26 hours.

Age 23 - First time living on my own & paying all my own bills.

Age 24 & 9 months: Lost my virginity, along I-25 in Colorado.

Age 25: First & only DUI. First time fired from a job. (Oddly, neither correlated.)

Age 27: First job with full benefits (military excluded). First (and only) marriage (Dubai, UAE). First (and not the last) overnight stay as a "guest of the County".

Age 30: First visit to a combat zone, Ramadi, Iraq. First time a personal friend was killed (one of them mere hours after we'd been working together).

Age 31: First (and only) divorce - Orange County, NC.

Age 32: Second visit to a combat zone (Haditha, Iraq). Only lost one friend that time.

Age 33: First attempt at fatherhood; failed. Miserably.

Age 34: First major psychological issue of adulthood - oddly, non-combat-related. First bout with functional alcoholism. First major purchase on credit.


So, yeah.... them's just the highlights that I can jot down offhand.

Much like my military career, my life has been colorful, though definitely not distinguished.

Song of the Moment: Little Wonder - David Bowie

Quotation of the Moment:
"We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name."
- Bill Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1601