When the going gets tough, the tough get going....but how?

Ok, so I am not really picking up where I left off. Instead, I feel like talking about the trials and tribulations associated with every day life. I have faced many challenges in life: financial problems, relationship problems, deployments, death of friends and loved ones, and more. I look back at it all and wonder, "How did I pull through?" I am not even sure I can answer that. What I do know is that regardless of the problems, I am going to wake up tomorrow. I can even trace that knowledge back to a specific instance. When I was in basic training, they made us rappel off of a 40ft tower. Until that point I was deathly afraid of heights. While I was standing at the edge it dawned on me that I wasn't going to die. No matter what they threw at me in training they wouldn't let me die. I suppose pychologists would call that a significant emotional event, but to me it was just a simple realization that until my time comes I will be able to face anything life tosses at me. From that day forth, even while deployed, I just took life a day at a time not worrying about things. I am not by any means a tough guy. I avoid confrontation like the plague, and I don't like the typical "me tarzan, you jane" attitude. I think if one word can describe me it would be tenacious. I don't give up easily as many of you may know. I just keep trying to get what I want (sometimes I'm not sure what that is). Anyways, this entire post came about because of some recent hardships in my life. I am just going to keep on keepin' on and one day, in a month or two, I will look back and think "that wasn't so bad."  Ok, I have done enough rambling with a bunch of disjointed sentences tonight. So I will leave you with a quote once again, this time from a famous military leader, a man known for always fighting through and persevering.

"If a man has done his best, what else is there?"
George S. Patton

Until next time,
Kenny P.

The beginning....

Where do I begin? Oh that's right, the beginning! Ok well my name is Kenneth R. Perkins Jr (Kenny) I was born in Grand Junction, Colorado on May 20th, 1983 at 11:47 a.m. Ok, maybe I am taking the beginning too literally. :) Ok, well most of you who read this know me. For those of you who don't, I am Kenny a helicopter crewchief in the U.S. Army. I am married and a father of two amazing little boys. I have been in the military 7 years, essentially my whole adult life. It is a life full of challenges: moving, deploying, long hours, unforeseen dangers, foreseen dangers and even sometimes boredom. I could sit here and talk about how I joined for all the idealistic reasons people want to hear, but really I joined because I was bored. I was working at Subway making sandwiches trying to figure out what to do with my life. So I found myself at a recruiting station. Next thing I knew I was on a bus in Missouri getting yelled at by a dude in a hat. I had seen the movie Full Metal Jacket, so I figured I was ready for basic training. Nope, real life is never as good or as bad as the movies depict. I went through the 9 weeks of basic in a daze. It wasn't too difficult or too easy, just tiring. Then the Army sent me to learn how to fix Blackhawk helicopters. Fourteen weeks, later I was on my way to Germany and an entirely new life. I spent 39 months in Iraq and Afghanistan, met my wife and had my children. Seven years later here I sit reminiscing. I have much more to say, but for now I will leave you with a quote from a famous American aviator and one of my personal heroes Charles Lindbergh.

"Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance."
Charles Lindbergh

Until next time....

Kenny P.