Confessions

 By Alex Runyan

(Brittany's  husband)

Reprinted with permission.

(I am publishing this story since I think it offers us all good advice. Life gives us twists and turns. What you do with them may impact your life forever. I am happy that Alex was able to put his feelings on paper, which will help him and his loved ones work through this. I ask you to join me in wishing God's blessings on him and Brit since he is honoring us all by his service to the people of the United States.)

Confessions

So I realize I’m hardly ever on facebook and because of that I’m sure not too many people will see this, but for those of you who might wander onto my page from time to time I have some things to share. I feel I have fought getting involved with facebook because I see and hear how some people get so consumed by it and almost live their lives around it, but it is a great tool to stay in touch with tons of people and to just catch up with old friends or share a little bit about yourself. So as my time is winding down here before I am off on my first deployment for duty overseas I am realizing more and more (much through the help of my wife) that I have become very unconnected with myself and essentially all of my family and friends over the last couple years. I must confess that this is entirely true.

Roughly two years ago I began the incredible journey some call ‘flight school’. I had just ended a serious relationship that wasn’t working out as well as left all the stressors of academy life, and was ready to pour myself into learning to fly, to start a new chapter of my life and I did just that. I was motivated and excited to do the best I could in the program. I became fascinated with learning to fly, I wanted to learn it all right away. I always found myself striving to know more and never feeling prepared enough because there was always something else I could have studied or picked up on before going on to the next stage. I became possessed by the desire of becoming proficient as fast as I could and just fell in love with going flying. It’s sad, but really the only thing I took the time to put into facebook other than some pics was this quote I really loved by Winston Churchill -

"The heights of great men reached and kept, were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upwards in the night."

This quote essentially sums up my efforts throughout flight school. I found it etched in a wall at Dennison University while out on a run near my parents home just before heading to flight school. This really became the majority of how I was spending my time. Whenever I started to realize this I think I just wrote it off as – this is the sacrifice I have to make in order to be in this profession, and I just took that to the extreme in my mind as I used it for anything that would keep me from bettering myself as a flight student. And don’t get me wrong, its incredibly necessary to make sacrifices, we can’t have our cake and eat it too as we like to say, but I was simply letting my studies rule my life, and that’s different. I still surrounded myself with amazing friends in that we all helped each other get through the program, but it was at a very large sacrifice of our time and energy. Throughout the program I met and worked with some amazing people, some who have come in and out of my life and others who I remain in close touch with, but regardless I regret I have never really taken the chance to get to know those people except for those whom I had met and known from the academy. As my wife has brought to my attention, my list of close friends outside the military is quite small because of the way I have lived my life. My dedication towards my workouts and staying in shape fell to the wayside as well as my desire for any other hobbies such as picking up the guitar. I love my guitar and aspire to be a great musician with it but have not taken the necessary steps to learn and develop that skill yet. I love and miss rowing so much, and I have not dedicated the time or money to get involved with it again.

 
Looking back now that I am past flight school and am back in the real world again, I am very proud of what I accomplished and quite astonished actually of all that we were able to do in less than two years, but I do see where I lacked the ability to continue to develop the rest of myself physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I know it seems silly that it takes an upcoming deployment to shake these thoughts out of me but nevertheless here they are. I plan to rededicate myself while I am gone and will have lots of time to reflect on my life and get back to developing myself and being a part of what’s important to me.

 
So pretty much right from the start of flight school I began to fall in love with the beautiful woman I am now blessed to call my wife. We had been close friends for years and we just started to grow closer and closer and well, the rest is history. We had a very unusual beginning, and did not even live in a home where it was just the two of us until about five months into our marriage. We had to do a lot of moving around which is natural to the flight program but not friendly on marriages. Basically it has not been ideal for Brit as she has had to endure a lot of stress because of me. I remained very consumed with my training and struggled to give her the time a newly married couple should have with each other.

Brit stuck with her schooling wherever we were and was able to finish her college degree but has not been able to get a solid start yet, much due to the fact we have been moving around a lot and this isn’t really the best time to be looking for a job as you all know. She has her moments as anyone would, but has stayed strong through all of this and is a very passionate person. She is extremely self taught in her passion for healthy and good things from the environment to physical health and I admire her very much for that. I have been virtually non-existent in her search for a new understanding of why our nation is becoming so unhealthy and how we can overcome it. If you read any of her notes you can see how she really believes in these concepts of prevention of cancer and of eating healthy, non processed, unaltered foods. This is just to name a couple of things she has become very well versed in. She has taught me so much on the importance of eating organic fruits, veggies, and meats that have not been altered from how the good man upstairs intended them to be, and I just wasn’t interested at first. I was thinking why pay more for the label organic because its ‘supposedly’ more healthy, a carrot is a carrot right? I did not take part in her investigations and research, but I have now come to appreciate what she believes so much more the more reading I have done. Its unfortunate and I know it hurts her that I didn’t just follow in her passion as she was introducing it to me, but I was just being careless and still consumed with my job of learning to fly that it just didn’t seem important. While I’m on this subject I must say if you have not, for yourself please check out her subjects that she has written on and get curious yourself, because the literature is out there, some of it is fanatical but much of it is pure and from people who honestly care about doing things the way we used to back in the day when we didn’t have heart disease, and cancer popping up left and right. So anyways I had followed along and bought the organic food and nodded my head but I am just now realizing the true importance of it, and I will always have her to thank for that. Hopefully I can find a way to really show her that appreciation, and I hope she can inspire you as well.

 
To anyone reading this please don’t take this as I regret what flight school has done to me and wish I had chosen another path. I love my job, I may not always agree with the way things are done, but who does? I love to fly and have the opportunity to support the studs out there doing incredible things and hope I always will, I don’t regret that path I took, it was a difficult one for sure but I have learned a lot about myself. What I do regret is how I treated the beginning of my marriage and my relationships with my friends and family over the past couple years. Would it have been possible to do well in flight school and have been a better husband, son, brother, and friend? I think so but I’ll never know. What I can do is rededicate myself to all of these roles that I have been lacking in. Maybe this may inspire you to rekindle fallen relationships or fallen passions you may have let slide because you “didn’t have the time” like myself.

 
I have done a lot over the past few years but I haven’t done enough. If you’re still reading by now I thank you for hearing my story and I hope its not just a bunch of garble to you. I’d love to reconnect with you and hear about what you’ve been doing all this time that I have been learning to fly helicopters. I’m about to have a lot of lonely nights in the desert wishing I would have spent more time with my wife and my friends and family, but I should have internet most of the time so don’t be a stranger and I’ll try to do the same! 
One last thing, being away on a deployment might be the hardest thing married couples have to go through, or maybe it just seems that way since that's knocking at the door right now. I just want to say that I appreciate in advance all the support you all give Brit while I am gone. Nobody can make up for me being gone and her feeling abandoned as I'm sure she will at times, but just a friendly and sincere how are you doing? is all it would take to keep her sane I'm pretty sure. I know that's all I would want is just knowing that someone cares and that she's not alone to deal with this. I'm not asking for pity for her and she doesn't want that, I'm just saying lets be real and not ignore the fact that this is really gonna suck at times for us and we need your help to get through it! I hope all is well and look forward to talking to you soon.

-Alex

P.S. Brit, I love you.