August 10, 2016, was supposed to be just another day for me as a Staff Sergeant in the Air Force stationed in Minot, North Dakota, guarding nuclear weapons.
I went through the motions of waking up at 2:45 am, making it to the armory by 4:15 am, loading up the Humvee and ensuring my 4-man fireteam was ready for another 16-hour day in the field. Little did I know I would make a life-changing decision.
Sitting in an up-armored vehicle, vigilantly staring at the vast farmland for imaginary adversaries with my assistant team lead, Staff Sergeant Diaz (another California native), as we start discussing anything and everything from his wife being an American Idol contestant to how expensive the housing market is in our hometowns.
With only a year left on my contract, a looming decision hung in the balance. Do I re-enlist and make the Air Force my career, or do I discharge and start my life over?
While Sergeant Diaz and I were talking about real estate, I mentioned that My sister just bought a house in San Diego and how expensive it was. That’s when Diaz planted the idea in my head.
“Why don’t you move there and just use the GI Bill to go to school?” Diaz said. “There isn’t a better place to live.”
The thought of using the GI Bill never crossed my mind. School was never my forte. My high school counselor put it best when it came time to apply for colleges.
“You aren’t going to college,” she said. “Let’s just make sure you walk the stage for graduation.”
Talking with Sergeant Diaz about the GI Bill process and its benefits gave me the courage to call my sister and ask her thoughts about me moving in with her and her husband if I decided not to reenlist.
They were excited about this opportunity for me and said they would open their home for me. But could I really take this leap of leaving the security of this military career and dive into the unknown?
I have a love-hate relationship with the military and my service. I don’t regret joining, It gave me the discipline and drive to succeed that I was blind to when I was younger. I hate the lifestyle and what it has done to my mind and body.
Fast forward to August 18, 2017. My Egg-white Mazda Three hatchback is loaded up with two suitcases and my trusty companion, a North Dakotan barn kitten named Catrick Swayze, as we trek our way to San Diego to begin a new journey.
On August 22, 2017, I’m sitting in my first college class in more than a decade. I’m scared of my history of academic failure, but I do what I did for the six years I was in the Air Force: hide my fear and jump into the unknown.
I did that for the next seven years, spending two years at San Diego City College, where I first received direction from my public speaking professor, Maria-Jose Zeledon-Perez.
I thought then I would become a communication professor myself.
I earned an academic scholarship to UC San Diego to finish my undergraduate degree. There, I grew apart from my dream of teaching due to my experience at UCSD, where the practical application of communication and public speaking was replaced by philosophical teaching.
I have nine minutes until the deadline now, so I’m going to skip to the end.
My first love was baseball and I want to become a baseball writer and eventually a columnist. It would be a dream to be apart of the BBWAA and get a hall of fame vote.
I have a disdain for baseball ownership and how their greed is ruining the game that I love.
I grew up ten minutes away from the Oakland Coliseum and lived and died with every pitch for the A’s from my first game in 1997 until the final game in Oakland on September 26, 2024.
I understand the challenges that I face ahead when it comes to a career in journalism, be it competition or low wages.
I’m up for another challenge of diving into the unknown.
