To an onlooker, a life in the military may look fun and exciting. However, only a person who has experienced being in the military can give a detailed account of the ordeals they have endured. To explore this statement more, I decided to interview my dad, David Pittman, a retired senior chief in the U.S. Navy. I believed that his job was a dream. Where else would you be able to visit foreign countries and relax on white-sanded beaches for free? However, his job did cost him numerous things, one being taken away from his family for months on end. My dad had to endure many hardships, which eventually lead up to the big payoff in the end.
Mr. Pittman has always been career-oriented ever since he was ten years old. He started out busing tables at the family restaurant, which eventually lead to making famous pizzas at the local Pizza Hut. "If you work hard, good things will come your way", was a motto he often told himself when times got rough. His desire to serve his country led him to the Navy. His dad also served in the Navy, which influenced his decision. At the age of seventeen, he enrolled in a delayed program. A delayed program is a program in which a young adult is sworn into by making a promise to the government that they will serve in the military. After boot camp, at the age of eighteen, he was put on an aircraft carrier and launched out into the "scary" world.
The carrier was bound for the Philippines, the first place he visited while in the Navy. Aboard the "floating city", as he called it, he met many groups of people that were of different races and customs. He described them as "a good mix of what the U.S. is all about." Many men, including him, had a family back home. He was married to his ex-wife at the time, who could not handle him being away. She ended up divorcing him, causing him to wonder what went wrong. He soon figured out that it takes a dedicated and trustworthy woman to become a "navy .