Yesterday, July 17, 2012, Matthew took his oath of enlistment into the U.S. Army.
"I, Matthew Steven Iveson, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
And with that, we have officially entered the Army. Matthew will ship out to Basic Training on January 22, 2013. Basic Training is 9 weeks long followed by 12 weeks of Officer Candidate School. We are unsure if there will be any leave between those two, but at least Jack and I will get to see him for his graduation from Basic.
Jackson and I are so proud of our soldier already. It has been a long two years of trying to enter the armed forces. Matthew has overcome many obstacles and has proven himself ready, willing, and able to serve his country. He has handled his disappointments well and always had faith that there was a place for him in the military. He has remained flexible when schedules changed, including his appointment of stay-at-home-dad for the time being. He has increased the intensity of his workouts to specifically train for the military. More recently he has begun looking into workout regimes to prepare for Ranger School in the even that his MOS is infantry. While he is not a runner and extremely dislikes that as a sport, he has run almost every day since he began this process and can now make his PT run in a shorter amount of time than the perfect score. He has worked so hard for this and we are so proud of him.
This will be a long, eventful, and difficult journey. We are so excited to be entering the military, to serve our country, and to become part of the extended family that is the military community. We are excited to see God work in and through our lives with the new places He'll take us and the people we will come in contact with.
As Jackson and I didn't go to Matt's swearing in (we didn't know we were allowed to), there are no pictures of that event. That is ok. We will take plenty of pictures at his Basic Training graduation and OCS graduation. He will be our man in uniform then and we will proudly salute him... and cover him with hugs and kisses!
Hooah.
