A Life Update

After taking such a long hiatus from this blog I am not sure where to begin again. My life now resembles very little of what it was even just seven months ago. First and foremost, I have a beautiful new best friend Caitlin who I am now engaged to marry in October. If that weren’t enough, after a full year of intense training I finally became a platoon commander. I command 2nd Platoon in “Suicide Charley” 1st Battalion 7th Marines. I live and work in the beautifully exotic high desert region of Southern California so I am exposed to a lot more sun and much less rain. The rigors of predeployment training have kept me rather busy. There was a lot of time spent in the field training from the moment I checked into my unit. The little free time I get I have used to explore the local area and the greater Southern California area that is all new to me. Joshua Tree National Park is my backyard and a beautiful backyard it is. I have spent several Saturday afternoons rock climbing in the park which is a world renowned destination for avid rock climbers. I live in a house in Yucca Valley, CA with three other Marine Lieutenants who I know from training. They are in a different battalion but we still enjoy sharing experiences about the ups and downs of commanding Marines. This has been my experience since the end of September. You might be curious as to how Infantry Officer Course went…I graduated. In all honesty I can’t share a whole lot about it. There is a lot of uncertainty involved in the training evolutions in IOC and I don’t want to jeopardize the valuable training of future Infantry Officers. Furthermore, most of what I would share wouldn’t be able to encompass my experience. It’s hard to explain if you haven’t been there. I can tell you this…it was one of the hardest and most demanding things I have ever surmounted in my life. I laugh writing that because I think I said the same thing about OCS and then TBS and now IOC. That’s the nature of training though; it’s not meant to get easier. I hope this suffices for an update, as I don’t have much else to share. There will be more to come as I deploy and those adventures are added to my life.