My parents both joined the Air Force as soon as they were eligible. They came from very different backgrounds and were seeking escapes from their respective environments.
My dad was born to a teen mother and a father who spent most of his life in prison. He lived an unsteady life, in and out of various project housing around the Baltimore area. When he was young, he had the opportunity to go to a nice school in a white neighborhood for a brief period of time. Because of that, he realized there was more to the world and followed that feeling, despite looking like just another statistic on paper.
My mother was born and raised on a farm in South Dakota. Her family had dairy cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and tended to hundreds of acres of crops. It was a harsh environment to grow up in, and the career options in South Dakota were limited. She joined up when she was in her last semester of high school and never looked back.
They both did mechanical work on airplanes, and my mom did journalism for a bit. They each spent 20 years enlisted and traveled the world. By the end of it, my dad was a master sergeant and my mom was a tech sergeant.
Their decision to join the military gave us the opportunity to have a much better life than they had and set a better foundation for us kids. They worked long and hard for many years, and I'm forever grateful for their sacrifice.
Happy Veterans Day to them and everyone else who has served.
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