Thursday morning Stephen and I sat down with a man called a "branch manager".
This man decides where everyone in Stephen's branch (which is the Chemical Corps) gets assigned.
Stephen had filled out a form with his top 5 choices and bottom 3 choices (we had got the list of possible assignments earlier that week).
Of course the top of the list was Ft Bragg, North Carolina.
We talked with the branch manager for about 10 minutes telling him where we wanted to go and why.
Then I went home and Stephen went back to his classes and we waited for the assignments to be posted that afternoon.
I was incredibly impatient to hear what we got.
It's a strange thing being a military wife and having some random person decide your future.
It's a really good (though painful) way to get over being a control freak.
Then around 5:00 Stephen sent me an email.
Just one line.
"He gave us Germany."
I flipped! (and not in a good way)
I emailed him back and said "You're joking right? Though that would be really mean."
He unfortunately was still in a class and couldn't reply or answer his phone.
Which left me to sit at home losing my mind.
Now some of you may be confused by this.
Germany is considered a very desirable assignment.
People always talk about how great it is and how you get to see all of Europe and all that.
And had this been our first assignment, I would have probably been happy about it.
But as things are, I am not, because:
1) I am not the most adventurous person and living in a foreign country kinda freaks me out.
2) I have gotten a little tired of being so far from home and living in strange/different places (Hawaii is pretty much a foreign country).
3) With getting the house in North Carolina we were making our plans to settle down. Going to Germany is like the opposite of settling down.
4) I don't want to have kids that far from home and family.
5) When you get an overseas assignment you are required to say in 3 more years and Stephen is planning to get out when his time is up (June 2013).
6) We would have to go to the post chapel which is notorious for bad theology and preaching.
7) I would have to say goodbye to getting my license as a Marriage and Family Therapist.
Because of these reasons I was sitting on the couch crying when Stephen got home.
He was not happy about the assignment either.
But he wrote an email to the branch manager telling him that we would take any assignment in the continental US over our assignment in Germany.
This was a bit of a risky move because the slots that were left over from everyone getting their assignment were the more undesirable ones (such as Ft. Drum which is way upstate New York and very cold, Ft Wainwright Alaska where it is currently -29 degrees and Ft Sill Oklahoma that is not in the nicest part of Oklahoma, not quite sure if there is a nice part of Oklahoma...)
Thankfully though we got an email the next day saying we are assigned to Ft Campbell Kentucky.
It's funny how it all turned out because if he had given us Ft Campbell straight off we would have been really disappointed because we wanted either Ft Bragg, North Carolina or Ft Eustis, Virginia.
But after the Germany scare and possible assignments like the ones mentioned about, we were thrilled to get Ft Campbell.
Ft Campbell is half in Kentucky and half in Tennessee.
It's only an hour from Nashville.
I have never been to Nashville but it's always nice to live near a big city.
It's a habit of mine when we are going a new place or have the possibility of going somewhere I always check the same things to see if its I place I would want to live.
I check if the town has a Target (that usually means its not a rinky dink town). check
I check if there are any good churches nearby. check
I check craigslist and see if the rental houses available in our price range are nice. check
I check if the nearby big city has an Anthropologie and a Paper-Source (my favorite stores). check
So Ft Campbell here we come.
Well not till June but were coming.
