Sold the jeep…

It is with great sadness and relief I am writing to say I finally sold my old jeep. It has been with me through thick and thin and always turned on when I turned the key. We needed to get rid of it before we moved again, so I sold it to a car trader. I hope it finds itself a good home with an owner that loves it as much as I did. So long old friend.

The latest news

Friends and family,

This past year has been action packed! Since I wrote last there has been a great deal of changes and happenings in my life. I will start with the most important one first. I got married!

Oh I know, who would have thought this day would come! I didn’t till I met this sweet little brunett named Cristin Cate Merrill. Cristin is from Vermont, lives in South Carollina. She got her degree at the University of New Hampshire in equine business management and rides horses for a living. She is a very talented dressage rider and works at a private farm where her and her boss’s train and ride the horses. She has been riding since she was a kid, so this has been a dream job for her.

Cristin and I met in Augusta,GA while we were both out with friends. I noticed her immediately to my right when I walked into the room. She was meeting up with friends on her way back home from a SPCA fundraiser. We started talking and my, life as I knew it, was over.

We started going on dates the night after we met and a month or so into it decided we should probably just go ahead and get married. We wanted to wait to get enguaged until after we met each others families. While I was on leave for Christmas, she flew to Texas to meet my family and they immediately fell in love with her. They gave me their blessing to go ahead and get married.

On Christmas day we both hopped on a plane to fly up to Vermont to meet her family after spending two days in Texas with my family. We get to Vermont and her parents picked us up from the airport. They were some of the most welcoming and friendly people I have ever met. Seriously, really great people. We spent a couple days there getting to know each other, playing games and exploring Vermont. It’s a small state but it is really pretty. Over breakfast on the day we were leaving I had a conversation with her parents and they gave me permission to marry their daughter. I was relieved to say the least. I proposed to her that morning and we started making plans to marry at the beginning of the year.

Being in the army it didn’t make much sense to wait and plan a big wedding at that point. I was about to get orders so logistically and financially, I was a better decision to have a small wedding so all the paperwork would be in order for her to be on my orders to come with me to my next duty station. If you have ever had to deal with the army, you understand the logic of this decision.

We were married on January 10, 2010 at the Angel Oak outside of Charleston, SC. I have never met someone who is such a perfect complement for me to move forward in life. Cristin is an amazing woman and I am so fourtunate she married me.

I have been in school here in Augusta since June and am finally done with my courses. I am a fully qualified 25s satelite communications systems operator and did a follow on course with General Dynamics on a couple other tactical satellite systems. A couple of the days were spent converting ip addresses to bianary numbers and hexadecimal, but it was all good knowledge. I am really fortunate to have gone to this school and learning this stuff has been fun. I made a number of good friends here and am excited to cross paths with all these people in the future.

While I was here my peers made me student leadership and I had the opportunity to be a class leader, squad leader and platoon leader to 145 other students. It was a good experience helping the soldiers out where I could.

I got orders to join up with the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii to do tactical satellite systems. Cristin and I are really looking forward to the move and the opportunity to live in such a beautiful place for the next three years. I am currently on hold waiting on my security clearance to go through in Virginia. It is frustrating waiting to leave, so I bother people everyday about it. I am aparently in a “que” waiting for my paprework to cross some beuracrats desk up in D.C.

When I am finally finished here in Augusta, we will be heading to Houston for two weeks to spend some time with family before we head off to Hawaii. I hope to see as many of you as we can while we are in town and am excited about introducing you to my new wife. I think my mom may be planning a party for us at the house in Katy when we do get there, so stay posted.

I will wrap this up by saying thank you for all your love and support for me and your continued support for our military through this transition in our nations history. I truly look forward to seeing each of you down the road.

All the best,

Brent D. Burns

(Pardon the mistakes, I wrote this on my phone.)

Friends, Family and Investors in my Life:

Happy New Year to you all! I hope this note finds you well. First off, I would like to thank everyone for all of your support and encouragement the last year. 2008 was the most challenging year of my life, both personally and financially, to date, and after seeing the most recent unemployment numbers rising to 7.2%, it appears I was not alone.

The reason I am writing is to update you all on a decision I made recently that is going to change my life significantly. I have decided to enlist in the Army and will be leaving for basic on Feb. 4th. This news may come as a shock to some, and to others it may come as no great surprise, as I have been toying with this idea since I was in the Corps of Cadets at A&M. I have always wanted to serve my country in some capacity and believe now is the best time in my life to do just that.

I signed my contract this past Friday to be a Satellite Communication Systems Operator (satcoms) for the next four years and am entering the army with the rank of E-4 (finally, my degree in Political Science is starting to pay off!). My original plan was to enlist as a Special Forces Candidate, but after some thoughtful consideration and sage advice I decided to go work with satellites instead, for the time being. I still have the option to pursue Special Forces, but would not be able to reclassify for satcoms if I did it the other way around.

My reasoning ultimately came down to numbers, as the army gave me a much larger bonus package to do satcoms, which will allow me to make significant financial progress over the next 60 months. My bonus package will have me coming out of the military with money in the bank, zero student loans, and put me in a position to pursue a MBA. No one in the private sector is offering to give me a very large cash bonus, will pay off all of my student loans and is willing to pay for my masters. Trust me, I have been checking.

Most of those who know me well, know that I don’t make major decision like this without giving them a great deal of thought and consideration. Trust that I have weighed the pro’s and con’s, sought out a great deal of wise council and am making the best decision for my life. It was a long road that got me to this point, but I am confident this is the correct decision for me at this time.

After Feb 4th I will be located at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina for the next 9 weeks. I will then go on to Ft. Gordon, Georgia for the next 27 weeks to learn about satellites (Did I mention someone is willing to pay me to go learn about satellites?!? I’m really excited about that one.), and I do not know at this time where my first duty station will be. After I make the rank of E-5 (about a year) I will make the decision to either pursue Special Forces Qualification and Selection, and extend my contract for another 2-3 years, stick with satcoms and finish my contract out, or go to OCS and stay in the military as an Officer.

I am really looking forward to 2009 and my next few years serving our country. Thank you all again for all your support and encouragement this past year. I am truly blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life and value my friendships with each and every one of you. The next few weeks I am going to be spending in Katy with friends and family while I get my things in order to leave. Feel free to contact me at any point in time before I head out by email at brent@bdburns.com. I don’t have everyone email address so feel free to send this out to anyone I know who may find interest.

Best regards,

Brent D. Burns
brent@bdburns.com