After 23 years, husband retires

Twenty-three years ago, a 19-year-old kid, who I think might have had a bit of an ego and an attitude, decided to join the U.S. Army.

He had done well in high school and started college, but decided he was more interested in majoring in girls than any subject so he didn’t stay in school too long.

After working for a local pizza delivery service, he decided his future wasn’t going anywhere fast and he opted to enlist while at a Pennsylvania mall one afternoon.

It’s my understanding, when he casually informed his mother that evening that he had joined the army and was soon heading off to boot camp, that her dismay and shock are still discussed at family reunions, family fights and occasionally bathroom breaks.

But enlist he did, and was soon a Private in the U.S. Army. After a few years as an enlisted man, he decided that he would be much better at giving orders than taking them and through the Army’s Green to Gold program, he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and re-enlisted as an officer.

After two decades now, this man, no longer quite so young but still with a laugh that draws people into any room and an amazingly enthusiastic personality, is retiring from the armed services. He still has the wee ego problem that I am certain he must have had since he was a teenager, though. Nice to know some things never change.

My husband’s official retirement ceremony was on Friday afternoon, and that was the day he donned his army greens for the last time. It was a bittersweet day, marked by some tears, a lot of laughter, and many memories. The people in charge of the ceremony had asked my husband for about ten pictures from his time in the Army. Five days before the ceremony, my husband had narrowed the field down to two-hundred. It took him awhile to filter through thousands of pictures from his time in the military, and that’s only since we’ve been using digital cameras.

For the first decade he was in the military, there are no digital pictures of him, mainly because such cameras hadn’t been invented. Or, if they had been invented, no one had the new fangled things.

I haven’t been with my husband for his entire military career, although we were both in Alaska at the same time during his first duty assignment to Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks. He was a young, impressionable 19-year-old during his first tour of Alaska, and enjoyed everything Fairbanks had to offer. But we never met.

Mainly because I was in the fourth grade at the time. I’m pretty sure we ran in different circles.

I love telling that story, but for some reason my husband always visibly winces when I do so and occasionally attempts to gag me. I just don’t understand — I think it’s hilarious.

So, ultimately the photos my husband showed at his retirement ceremony were as diverse and as changing as our lives together have been. There were photos of him cradling his oldest daughter when she was a new baby, born a month early. She is just barely bigger than his hands as he cups her, and the love in his face for this tiny being in his care is overwhelming. My step-daughter, now 13 years old, no longer fits in the palm of his hand, although sometimes I think he would like to freeze time and have her back as the infant he could protect from everyone and everything.

He chose a photo from our wedding, mainly because I told him I wanted one in there because I was actually having a good hair day that afternoon. Our happiness is palpable in the photos, and we are both laughing into that camera of over almost a decade ago.

There were pictures of our son, now four years old and the spitting image of daddy, even more so since his follicle-challenged father shaved his son’s head two weeks ago. Now both my boys are blue-eyed and bald and as stubborn as anything with laughter that lights up the room.

And, of course, there were pictures of our youngest, the now 2-year old that we still refer to as “The Baby”. Her cap of brown curls rests easily in her father’s fingers as he constantly runs in fingers through them, marveling at the changes wrought in her after his year’s deployment to Iraq.

There were pictures from his time in Hawaii, when he went on recovery missions through the Central Identification Lab-Hawaii, looking for veteran remains from our nations past conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea and Korea. There were pictures from the time I refer to as B.M. (Before Me) of him in various military positions on various bases, and there were a few shots of our vacations together: The cruise we took to the Mexican Riviera, the Barbados resort we enjoyed and the time we got to see his beloved Steelers play in Pittsburgh. I still don’t think I’ve ever been forgiven for yawning during the middle of the game and asking him if anyone would notice if I read the novel I’d tucked into my purse.

And, of course, there was the picture of him and what I am now assuming was his beloved goat from Iraq. The picture still makes me pity the poor animal, and the goat doesn’t appear real happy either.

All in all, it’s tough to compress a 23 year military career into ten pictures, but my husband tried to do it. I think he ultimately sent about 15 over and asked the individual in charge to narrow them down because he could not do it. We laughed and reminiscenced as we discussed the pictures before he sent them off for display at his ceremony, and we made plans about what we will do for the next few decades.

Because, now that he’s in his forties and officially retired from the United States Army this week, my husband has to decide what he wants to do when he grows up.

Tiffany Horvath is the mother of two and the stepmother of one. Her husband, Drew, was deployed to Iraq and returned home in December of December. She writes every Sunday abut life at home as a wife and

mother.