Military Dad in the Navy
Women of the Military
English - June 15, 2021 06:00 - 34 minutes - 31.9 MB - ★★★★★ - 79 ratingsHistory veteran women join the military military life deployment stories military Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Military Dad in the Navy
David joined the Navy right after high school because he wanted to go to college. He did not have a way to pay for college and saw the military as an opportunity to get his degree paid for. He ended up excelling in the Navy and was able to get accepted to a program to go back to school, earn his degree, and become an officer in the Navy. When he came back in he was Naval Flight Officer as a Tactical Coordinator.
September 11th happened while attending college. The Navy changed from being open with minimal security along with a higher ops tempo than before. He loved the work he was doing and deployed around the world for various missions. One mission that he shared about was when they were off the coast of Libya. There they helped to coordinate with the Libyan military who provided the ground forces and the US Marines provided air support. They were able to help liberate Libya from ISIS control.
He got married and had his first child while in college. And they moved through flight school and training until they arrived in Florida. David was able to spend most of his career in Florida and for the tours outside of Florida, he geo-bached to help his family have stability and not have to move. This is a sacrifice a military dad may make to help support his family. The first time was for a tour he knew that he would be gone most of the time. He ended up being deployed/training approximately twenty out of twenty-four months and it was better for his family not to move.
He would travel home on weekends when he could and got creative so he could spend time with his family. The next assignment wasn't as high ops but his oldest was starting high school and they decided they did not want to make everyone move. He was able to travel home from Virginia for long weekends and used leave time to spend more time at home. He ended his career in Florida and now works for Bank of America.
Transitioning out of the military was not easy. He had a community and knew where he was going to live. But he didn't have a plan on where he was going to work. He attributes his success today to Operation New Uniform. There he was able to learn about figuring out what he wanted to do. He also learned about writing a resume. And it was through networking that he was able to land a job at Bank of America. One piece of advice he shared for transition veterans was to think about timetables. For example, Bank of America starts looking for new hires for the next year in late summer early fall. If you start looking for a job when you leave the military it makes takes more time than you expect before the job openings are filled.
Connect with David:Mentioned in this episode:Ben Killoy - Dads are so important - episode 79
Related episodes:Weapon System Officers - Episode 71
Check out the full transcript here.
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Resources:
Women of the Military Mentorship Program
Girl's Guide to Military Service available where books are sold.