It seems to me, that’s when the fun began. All I could think about was our life at Ft. Bragg. Would we move into housing? If so, then what? Some of the older places were so cute and red brick!!!! How could you not love a red brick housing unit??? Oh, we would be Air Force with the Army. That’s so great. The AF seems to forget about you and the Army isn’t sure what to do with you. And if you’re AF on at an Army post and you get involved, they find you amazing…truly amazing. What if we lived off post? Would we rent, or buy? What would we do??? Then the questions about Jeremy’s training and deploying surfaced; what would that be like? So many questions, no answers, and we weren’t eligible to get orders for over a year. In our home, we were coming to Ft. Bragg two years ago.
It was a gamble to come here. We had a few cards to play, and they had to be played well in order to win. Jeremy was stagnating at our last base. He was no longer the man that I married, he was a guy that filled a uniform and was losing his direction. Something had to be done. I couldn’t let SSgt Awesome not be awesome! So, we started to push and encourage each other. It was my idea for Jeremy to go to jump school. It was me that pushed him into coming to Ft. Bragg, but it was us, yup, the both of us that wanted a new adventure. I was pregnant with our first child when we found out that the gamble paid off. WooHoo…we got our orders to Ft. Bragg. Yeah, it meant time away, tons of training, and of course deploying, but it was worth it. On April 30, 2010 the Reynolds family was given a report no later than date of November 2010. So, Halloween weekend, we packed up our little car with an eight week old baby and a ten year old cat and drove from Nebraska to North Carolina. I smiled the entire time.
We had no home, the housing wait list was so long, and knew nothing about the area. All we were told is that Fayetteville sucks and it’s crime ridden, the schools are horrid, you‘ll be mugged, and probably have your house broken into. Great…that’s where we’re moving too???? This is where I wanted my family to come? I’m such a jerk!!!! Things started out a little rocky. We found a house that was given to us in a bad condition. It needed some love. We were the family to take care of that house and make it a home. Jeremy was already going to be in training as soon as we got our house settled. We were also getting close to the holidays and there was so much going on. All of my family now lives in NC, so we were busy! But none of this mattered. Fayetteville was winning me over, and I was falling more in love.
Skip the next few months and now here it is May 2011, and it’s been two years in the making to come to Ft. Bragg/Fayetteville. Here I am, and I’m in love. I love our life here. Jeremy and I are invested. We are buying a home here, we plan on coming back to retire to the area one day, I’m the first AF FRG leader, and the network of people I have here is amazing. But something else is involved in all of this…there’s a city…my friend Fayetteville. While walking around downtown with my family today, I realized that I adore it here. I can’t help it. The people are friendly, the shops are charming, the food is yummy, and the history flows through the city like water in a river. The stories are amazing here, and the city is proud of itself. Yeah, it’s Fayetteville, and it used to be a craphole, and there are places that are still being fixed up, but this city, this Southern city with its Dogwoods and Magnolias, with sweet tea that makes you sigh, and cupcakes that are made from scratch, this city.
Well, this city and I have many dates planned. If you see some blushing teenagers running around downtown, it’s just me, Susan Reynolds and Fayetteville…carrying on.
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