1996 - The Army

Image is from 2010.

Fast forward to high school, I was very overweight (240lbs) and never fit in. This was far from my last battle with being overweight. I had a couple of friends but mostly stuck to myself. I had poor grades except for the computer lab and keyboarding, which I got promoted to teachers help most of the time. Speaking of poor grades, I barely passed the 3rd grade, so my father held me back a year to repeat it. My junior and senior years, I didn’t have a driver’s license and rode the school bus for 2 hours a day until I graduated, but I did have a job which I had to get dropped off at after coming home from school, working usually until 11pm on weekdays, and 1am on weekends. Coming close to graduation, I had no idea what I wanted to do afterwards. We didn’t have money for college, so I decided to sign up for the Army. I was still 240lbs, and I needed to be at the most 220lbs to get in. For two weeks I fasted, walked, and only drank water to make the weight limit, which I did.

After testing and processing, I got to choose the MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) of 31U, a Signal Support System Specialist. At the time of the job, it was mostly just working on installing/repairing radio equipment and setting up field antennas. I went to boot camp, did my two months of training there, qualifying and earning the Expert Marksmanship Qualification Badge. After that, I did six months in AIT (Advanced Individual Training) and learned all the troubleshooting and workings of the SINCGARS (Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System) as well as some basic electricity fundamentals. From there I was stationed at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma for two years. I was twenty-one, and that’s where I met my first girlfriend (I was a fat kid, remember?). More about that later.