Chapter 1

I never imagined myself a mom. I had my life mapped out for me. For as long as I could remember I had wanted to be an attorney so doing so while having a career in the Army seemed like the best way to achieve that goal. Life had other plans for me though. As anyone who has served can tell you, you get a bit carried away at times with friends, your freedom and things sometimes take a turn from the planned course; or at least they did for me. A baby was never in my life plan, or if it was it was surely not while I was single and at the age of 20.

I was living a carefree life, and thought I had it all. I had a good job with the Army, an assignment that most dreamed of. My base was located in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps in the most beautiful of settings. I had arrived in Utopia, with not a care in the word; no responsibilities, no one to answer to; what more could a single 19 year old female ask for? Not long after arriving I met someone and fell “in love.” He was different than guys I had dated in the past; mainly because I had not dated a lot in my past, but also because he was sincere, caring, compassionate, and put my needs above his. We dated for a while and I got scared. I began pushing away and never gave reason. I knew my family would not approve of him, but I had not matured enough to tell him the truth. I was good at pushing and running, I had done it my whole life; after all that is how I ended up in the Army in the first place. I ran to escape the small town I called home, the family I left behind, and college that I could not afford. He and I parted and went separate ways, he took a TDY to Texas and I stayed in Germany dealing with what I had done. There was not a day that went by that his face did not pop into my mind, my dreams or my thoughts. I could not go anywhere without seeing him so I began going out more than before and trying to “drink” his memory away.

When first arriving in Germany I had to wait on my paperwork to catch up with me before I was able to go inside of OPS to work, so I had the pleasure of working with the MP’s. It was an experience like no other, but I was anxious to do the job I had trained a year to do: the job on the “inside”. Finally everything was in order and I was able to go “in.” There were four shifts on the inside and I would be assigned to Bravo. From what I knew of the people on Bravo they were a good group, I had met many of them while working with the MP’s so there would be some familiar faces. One I was looking forward to seeing was the Air Force guy who came sliding through the gate while I was on duty one evening.