The reasons for my signing of a US Navy contract at the age of 18 years old are a distant memory now. The year was 2000, I was a senior in high school, and I wanted to attend Northwestern University. My mother encouraged me to fill out a scholarship for the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps. I filled out the paper application in pencil. It asked which single character trait could I offer that would provide the most benefit to the USA. Commitment. I wrote slowly and methodically, trying to hide a penmanship skill that I lacked, with words proving that I was ready to be committed. My commitment paragraph discussed scholastic commitments displayed in AP biology and musical commitments practiced with the violin. The only goal in my mind was acceptance and funding of college at Northwestern University. I signed the US Navy contract in my true sloppy handwriting, enjoyed the last few months of high school track meets and orchestra concerts with my sister, and packed my father’s jeep with my belongings. Little did I know what commitment the US Navy had in store for the tall kid who spent his first eighteen years of life in the same town.

Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) at Northwestern University began on September 8th 2001. We were at Great Lakes Naval Station being screamed at by college juniors and seniors, the upper class midshipmen, in our abbreviated, intense, yet comical version of boot camp. However, three days later while we were having fun with icebreaker games and tying boating knots at the beautiful Lake Michigan marina the mood abruptly changed.

I saw terror in the faces of our Navy and Marine Corps instructors. I feel this now as I type and try to hold back tears. My best friend Michael Lee told the instructors his father was working in the Pentagon. Everything became surreal, but more real, more poignant, more powerful. We all packed our bags, got into the vans, and prepared to move off base back towards campus. I remember the uncertainty, yet the calm purpose as we all listened and moved as one. We would stay and complete the last few days of boot camp. Then it was back to the books. While US forces moved into the longest war in history, we would safely sit and study, training and waiting for our release into action.

My first distant look into the ability of combat forces came while I was a college freshman. I spent a week with the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton, a base just north of San Diego. All of us midshipman spent a few summer weeks in this gorgeous city as a final wine-and-dine experience before we had to sign our binding, 4-year service commitments to the US Navy. It was during this time that the pheromones of the US Marine Corps got me, the glisten of sweat against Eagle, Globe, and Anchor tattoos on bulging biceps peeking out under crisp, rolled, Woodland-Pattern camouflage.

I continued and graduated from NROTC and Northwestern University, becoming a commissioned US Naval Ensign in May of 2005. My best friend Michael Lee and I were lucky enough to be selected straight into medical school. He went to the Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences and I went to the University of Illinois at Chicago. Here was another four years of sitting, studying, and training while the disasters of war continued in a distant land. I was introduced to Nicole, a fellow medical student, and we engaged to be married. It was love at first sight, soul mates, but I knew we would have many geographical challenges. I was asking her to accept all commitments the Navy asked of me in addition to being personally committed to me. Upon graduation from my civilian medical school in May of 2009, the personal characteristic of commitment was finally going to be tested.

The US Navy superseded me to the rank of Lieutenant and shipped me to my dream duty station, Naval Medical Center San Diego. Nicole continued medical school in Chicago and would visit me on the weekends. After the Fort Hood shooting I felt determined to lead by a new example, and applied for residency in psychiatry. I was to start at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center , the US Navy’s flagship of military medicine and the President’s hospital. It would be my home for 3 years of difficult and heart wrenching training in psychiatry residency from July 2010 to July 2013. During this time my wife graduated from medical school and joined me in Washington D.C.

I was sitting outside by the flagpole in front of the Walter Reed when my psychiatry specialty leader, CAPT Gail Manos, called. A hot fill position had opened at Camp Lejeune with the 6th Marine Infantry Regiment. They needed a psychiatrist to fill their Operational and Stress Control Readiness (OSCAR) billet. I knew this would make the third year away from my wife since our marriage began. I stood up and reported to CAPT Manos that I was ready and would do a great job for the 6th Marine Regiment commanding officer. It was a bittersweet moment. Confrontational commitments of my purpose in the military and the love of marriage weighed heavily on my mind. How could I be a good husband to my pregnant wife when the military was asking me to be a geo-bachelor? Would I be able to drive home to see the birth of my daughter Stella or would I be deployed to a combat zone? I felt truly sad and wondered how thousands of other military service members had done this.