Last year was filled with a lot of movement, for work and for pleasure. Living in Middle Tennessee and working in East Tennessee is strenuous enough, but when you add a National Training Center rotation, Pre-Deployment Site Survey, Pre-Deployment training, and the actual deployment, I found myself traveling for work more than I ever have.
2018 started out monotonous, with the routine of driving to Knoxville on Sunday evenings and coming back to the Boro on Friday afternoons. I got my first vacation of the year in March when Jen and I took our normal spring break trip to Panama City. After that trip, that’s when my traveling veered into the fast lane.
The first week of April, I flew to El Paso, TX for a Pre-Deployment Site Survey. For all you non-military types that read this, that’s basically a recon to where we were going to deploy from. When I returned from that trip, Jen and I had our engagement photos made in Nashville.
A short week and a half later, I was flying out to Southern California for our NTC Rotation. From the middle of April to the end of May, I was in the desert. I had four days off after returning before we started Pre-Deployment training. This was split between, Tullahoma and Smyrna. That training lasted about two weeks and then Jen and I took a long weekend back to PCB.
We drove back from PCB one day and the next day I reported to Knoxville to begin the deployment. Four days later, I was back in El Paso for more Pre-Deployment training and readiness processing. That was the end of June. By the middle of July, I was on a flight to Ukraine.
You would think that the traveling would somewhat slow down after I landed in Ukraine. That would not be the case. For the first three months, I was going into town every Monday, Wednesday, & Friday for laundry service. While that’s not an extensive trip, it’s still movement. Every Sunday, I took off to Lviv to explore and experience the culture.
The most unexpected travel plans I had was in October. I came home for two weeks of emergency leave to be with the Kiddo. Everything’s good now, but he still has a long road ahead. That was by far what felt like the longest flight I’ve ever taken and the shortest two weeks I’ve ever had. Then I was right back to Ukraine.
I spent the weekend in Lviv on Thanksgiving and then I took a short weekend trip mid-December to Kiev to see the sights and for a small break.
From the time I moved to Middle Tennessee in 2010 until I was promoted in 2017, I can count on my hand how many times I traveled. I knew when I took this promotion, I would be doing some travelling, but I had no clue how much. Looking back at my calendar for 2018, I travelled A LOT!