Coastal Brothers and Sisters: A Tale of Two Cities (and Two Continents)

In January of 2017 I became Executive Officer of HSC-85 and attempted to execute reserve drill there while working full time in Washington DC. It was difficult, and, in hindsight, probably not a great idea. The selection for command was very unexpected, but I didn’t think it was an opportunity to lead that I should pass up.

I traveled to Newport, RI in April to attend pre-command Naval Leadership and Ethics training and completed a week of aircraft “back-in-the saddle” proficiency flying in Boise, ID in August in preparation to deploy again. Remembering my going away from DC in September actually makes me more sad writing today than it did at the time, though at the time I was consumed with packing up and moving cross country once again.

I knew once I became XO that I would have to come back to the Navy full-time, at least for the majority of the XO/CO period. I tried to maximize my time in DC. I attended baseball games in DC and Baltimore, anchored the Nelson inter-congressional-office softball team, and tried to ensure weekends that I was in town were filled with happy hours and friend dinners. Looking back, I was not as successful as I hoped, due to travel between DC and SD – not an easy feat even in today’s transportation age.

I was able to complete some pleasure travel. I went to Tampa for the Service Academy Appointees reception, which was for Nelson work, but I was able to expand the trip with an Orlando visit. Spending July 4^th in North Carolina with the whole family, including Glory, was definitely the highlight of the year. I made it to the annual Pensacola Beach week in August and went from there to North Carolina for a wedding of a DC friend couple. I also went to Annapolis in October for my Class of 2002 15-year reunion, where I was interviewed on radio about the occasion with my famous Blue Angel classmates. Finally, and thankfully, I was able to spend Christmas in Orlando as well before departing on deployment.

Filling my role as Executive Officer and preparing for deployment began to take up much more of my time. I mobilized in Norfolk in September and then made the long cross-country trek, Glory in tow, from DC back to San Diego. I got to experience the four-year requirement for the “helo dunker” which is always a thrill. I also made a trip to meet my deployed chain of command staff Special Operations Command Pacific at Camp Smith in Hawaii.

In January I departed for Africa to provide casualty evacuation support for operations throughout the Horn of Africa. This deployment was quite a bit different from my previous ones – while the mission was similar, our living conditions were very austere, and the deployment was tough. A chain of command that didn’t understand what we were doing nor providing us the support to do it made the experience all the more frustrating, a condition that would unfortunately continue throughout my command tour.

The end of the Mom Year saw me missing the birthday trip to Portofino, but about to make the jump from Africa to Japan, and back to San Diego shortly thereafter.