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Our First Place winner... Bryan Gerber, with his story.
It`s very strange how we get to the places we go in life. Every little decision, every little move we make shapes our lives either for better, or worse. The story of how I met that one person that I want to spend the rest of my life with was a very bumpy one, but well worth it.While I could fill up 20 pages or so with how it happened, I will just say I am a divorced father of 3. I love my kids. They mean everything to me. This change in life was very hard for them. I knew that their happiness and well being outweighed anything I could ever want for myself. Wanting to marry again let alone dating, seemed so far out of the picture that it was never even a thought for me. But with the help of my kids, and a few others, that changed.
I had taken a job working for the Deployment Cycle Support Center for Minnesota. Our job was to prepare service members, as well as their families for deployments as well as help them reintegrate back into the world when they came home. One of the programs we sponsor is a "Boots on Camp" weekend camp for children who have parents in the military. I thought this was a great chance for my kids to spend a weekend with other kids in their same situation. I was also given the opportunity to lead one of these camps with two other volunteers from the National Guard. One of the volunteers was a woman named LT Panula.
The first time I saw her she had the biggest smile I had ever seen. I thought she was gorgeous. But, I was here to do a job and I was going to do this job. Still, that didn`t stop everyone around us, everyone being a bunch of kids, to see we liked each other. I was going to let this attraction fall by the way-side, but my campers decided that was not going to happen. Funny how a few 9-year old kids can change your life, especially when only one was my daughter. I remember them coming up to me and saying, "Why are you always talking to her? Do you like her? OHHH I`m gunna tell her!" And that`s exactly what they did. So, a bunch of kids did what I couldn`t do. They told her that I liked her and wanted to ask her on a date. After that, I figured since I was already completely embarrassed, I would ask her out. Now, when you’re a father of 3, the idea that any women would say yes could be considered nothing less than a miracle. To my surprise, however, she said yes.
To be honest, I never expected her to say yes. In fact, I was going to cancel at first. But I decided to give it a shot. The first date went great even though I was a walking nervous wreck the entire time. But still, it seemed like she actually liked me. But there is something to be said practice......it makes perfect. I was very out of practice when it came to dating. So, the next date I think I was bit too over-zealous. Once again, I won`t get into the details, but I scared her off. Even though it was only a second date, I was devastated.
It took about two weeks for me to get back into the normalcy of my life. I tried not to think of what happened. It was just much easier to ignore it. But my oldest daughter Jacie wouldn`t stop talking about her. "Where is she? Are you going to ask her on another date? What`s wrong daddy?" I told her it probably wasn`t going to work. That`s when she said something to me that changed my life. "Daddy, if you like her then why don`t you just call her?" The most basic and simple advice from someone I`m supposed to be giving advice to was the best advice I`ve ever gotten. So I called her. And to my surprise, she said yes to another date.
Flash forward almost a year later, Kristen and I are still together and I’m in love with the greatest girl in the world. I know that I want to marry this girl and spend the rest of my life with her. My kids love her to death as well. That however, is not possible right now. This economy has hurt a lot of us, myself included. I cannot afford any type of ring for her. And with my upcoming deployment looming, by the time I can I will already be gone. I would love to win this contest. I would love to surprise her with a ring she deserves and a great engagement party. So if you have read this and you feel it is worthy of your vote, please do. It’s not just for me or for Kristen, but for my kids too. I want us all to have a great life together, and I think this where we start.
Our Second Place winner... Specialist Brandon Diener-, with his story.
My relationship with my girlfriend, Johanna, has been a rocky one. We grew up together throughout our highschool years but never really talked until after. We started dating as a part of an ongoing joke. Back in 8th grade we dated for a whopping 8 minutes as part of a joke with a friend of ours. While in Hudson, Wisconsin at a bar one night we decided we would shoot for 9 minutes. So I asked her out, started my timer on my watch, and once it hit 9 minutes I looked up at her and asked, "Ok so who is going to dump who?"
To my amazement she said she refused to dump me. Well I said the same thing, so that put us in a pickle. When I started to talk about said pickle, Johanna essentially cut me off and said "Let`s just date." So from that day on, we`ve been dating!
Fast forward to the day before Thanksgiving, 2008. I`m at work and on my lunch break when I get a phone call from my unit in Bloomington, MN stating that I have been moved to another unit in Inver Grove Heights. When I asked why, the soldier informed me that I was leaving for Iraq in a couple months. Needless to say, that thanksgiving was nearly ruined. I waited to tell Johanna, because I was terrified of what she would say. When I did eventually break it to her a couple days later, we both laid in her bed and literally cried together for almost an hour. It was a rough rough moment but we kept reminding eachother that everything would be just fine and "it`s only a year."
Well, things were about to get even more complicated. As the days counted down until we left (February 12th, 2009) we spent nearly every moment together. It wasn`t until a few weeks prior to leaving that we got the shock of our lives. Johanna was pregnant. Suddenly in an instant the feeling of confidence we had spent about a month building on for the upcoming year was shattered. It wasn`t fair. Not only was I being pulled from a unit I had grown to love in Bloomington, pulled from my friends and family, pulled from my job, and pulled from Johanna... but I was now being pulled away from the experience of having your first child together.
It had changed everything and the whole leaving process was a mess. When I was boarding the busses to go to the airport, Johanna was on bedrest. She ended up losing nearly 20 lbs and was extremely dehydrated because she couldn`t keep anything down. I had never seen her that sick before in my life and it killed me to leave her there like that, in that condition, with the foreboding thought that there was a possibility that we would lose the baby. For lack of a better phrase: It just plain sucked.
We stayed in touch nearly every single day during the course of the deployment, through emails, phone calls, and letters. I still remember finding out that we were having a girl and picking out the name Vivian together like it was yesterday. One thing I don`t remember though? The actual birth. Vivian was born on September 3rd, 2009. We tried everything to get me home on time, but unfortunately I was 2 days late. There was nothing I was looking forward to more than being home to see my first child, my daughter, being born into this world and I missed it. Both Johanna and myself were heartbroken.
Leave was far from a negative experience though. Being together with Johanna and with our new daughter is something I could not even begin to put words to, especially after spending half a year in Iraq. That also meant leaving to go back was twice as hard, but for the first time in the course of the deployment, I had a more positive outlook and was in the whole "Only a few more months to go, let`s do this" mindset.
The feeling of actually coming back for good was amazing. Knowing that I would have more than 15 days to spend with Johanna and our baby was twice as amazing. It`s been almost 3 months now since I got home on January 31st, 2010. I wish I could say it`s been great, but unfortunately due to the economy and job market crisis, I have not been able to find a job and as such I have nearly exhausted my savings from Iraq and am now living off of unemployment. I have gone out to look at rings on more than one occasion but I always come back home in a depressed mood knowing that it`ll be a while before I can afford a ring. Our plan had been to get engaged and married right away when I got home and start working on a second child so their ages wouldn`t be too far apart, but due to the fact that I can`t seem to find work anywhere and get an income... we`ve had to change course a bit.
This has bothered both of us quite a bit and I think it`s put us on edge sometimes. We both really want to be engaged and keep hoping that one of these days somebody will call me back and offer me a job so I can afford to buy a ring and pay for a wedding. So far I haven`t gotten that call yet. I spend 90% of my time at home watching our daughter and taking care of her during the day, so getting out and looking for jobs is harder than ever.
So I hope you will consider me for the ring. Even if we got nothing else but simply the ring, I would be absolutely in debt to you guys. Johanna and I haven`t really had the chance to pick anything that happens in our lives and we seem to be getting thrown around quite a bit with deployments, insurance problems, bills, and everything else so I would be a blessing to be able to finally be able to show her how much I love and care about her and place that ring on her finger. There is nothing we want more than to be with one another for the rest of our lives, I just can`t afford the ring to make it happen and it kills me. So please consider me for this ring, it would mean the world to us. Thank you.