I have two amazing sons and will be talking about each of them individually. Today’s blog is about my son Jonathan, since he sent me a wonderful birthday present today and he is heavy on my mind.
Jonathan is 29 years old and a tech sergeant in the U.S. Air Force. Obviously I am very proud of him. He currently is in the middle of a six-month deployment to the Philippines, so I haven’t seen him since last September. His area of expertise with the Air Force is meteorology, weather forecasting, or whatever you want to call it. He also has a top-secret military clearance, so all of the things he does for the Air Force may not be entirely weather-related – but since it’s top-secret, I’ll never know for sure.
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| Family Photos from Recent Christmas Cards |
I am proud of Jonathan for a lot of reasons, so where do I begin? I’ll start with his photography, because the birthday present he sent me today involved family photos from a Hawaiian vacation that we shared last summer. Jonathan is an accomplished photographer and I am constantly amazed at the many outstanding photographs he has taken. A lot of his photographs can be found on Flicker: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27562582@N07/ -- go there and take a peek so you can see what I mean. Although Jonathan is an amateur, many of his photographs have been published pro gratis by nonprofit organizations or publications that have requested his permission, and he also has won photo competitions through DPChallenge (http://www.dpchallenge.com), where he’s known as Jovan. I like to think I had a part in his photography, having bought him his first camera – a 35 mm – for his high school graduation present in 2000.
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| Jon & Shana's Wedding Day |
Jonathan is married to a beautiful young woman named Shana, and they have two precious little daughters named Lilia (age 5) and Annelise (11 months). When Jon gets back from the Philippines, they will resume living in Hawaii (Hickam Air Force Base), where they resided the past few years before the deployment. Other Air Force assignments have taken them to Kaiserslautern, Germany; Biloxi, Mississippi; and Omaha, Nebraska. Who knows where the next tour of duty will take them? They are hoping for someplace exotic and I am hoping for someplace not too far away, so I can go visit them without spending a day in an airplane. Shana and the girls have been staying with her parents in Huntertown while Jon is in the Philippines, so I currently have the unique opportunity to see my granddaughters on a regular basis, which I love – so you can understand why it’s hard when they live far away.
There are lot of other things about Jonathan that make me proud of him, but I won’t go into too much detail so as not to embarrass him. Suffice it to say that he’s a wonderful young man who loves his family, works hard and has an admirable set of values. What more could you ask for?
Two of my best friends are former USAF weather folk; one is retired and the other, who cross-trained into public affairs, is retiring when she gets back from Afghanistan in a few months. (I didn't see Chanute AFB on your list of Jon's past bases, so I'm guessing he went to tech school more recently than, and probably wouldn't know either of, them.) Your son's is a tough AFSC--not unlike air traffic control--because weather troops make some very difficult life-or-death decisions and recommendations to commanders. You are justifiably proud of him!
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