So my hubby joined the Army Reserves when he was 18. He concurrently was in ROTC at college and planned to be a career military officer. After 2 years in ROTC he decided he would do his 4 years and get out. At the time we were friends, nothing more but I already could feel the tension growing. He got more and more frustrated as the years went on, but he was still convinced that his cause was a normal one. We got married right after he graduated from college, and I was trying to graduate early.
That’s when it all went to shit. A few weeks after graduating he got “volunteered” to run ROTC’s version of Basic Training. There he found that it was a regular occurrence for officers who had screwed up to blame someone of a lower rank. That he could have dealt with, but eventually he was being COMMANDED to lie to corroborate their stories. He got some cadets in serious trouble doing this, for things they didn’t even do. He was sick about it and hated himself.
After 6 months of soul searching he decided to write a letter of resignation and see what happened. What happened is they said “no” to his resignation. So he decided getting out was the only option he could live with and that he would do it by any means necessary, and most importantly he would not participate in anything he felt was illegal or immoral along the way. Doing it this was took just under two years.
That time was stressful and heart wrenching. We went through the whole thing 2000 miles away from family, the whole time never knowing when we’d make it back. We lived a lie to pretty much everyone we met, we couldn’t just share this story in a military town. But it’s over now, he’s out, and he never has to go back. This is the short version
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