2 Years Ago

A friend of mine who I had served with was driving through the area and asked if he could stay with my wife and I. Two of his close classmates had been killed in Iraq during the same incident and he was driving back from the funeral at West Point. We spent some time catching up and exchanged stories about the civilian world. He had done much better than me. He had found this great company who truly valued his military experience. I was totally jealous. I wanted to give him my resume. The only catch was that he worked 400 miles away. I still gave him my resume knowing it probably wouldn’t work out anyways. After a few phone calls and emails I was on a plane for an interview. I was offered a job with a salary of $40K more than I was currently making. My wife and I both agreed that we had to take the opportunity. There were plenty of jobs within my wife’s industry in the area and we anticipated the transition to be a relatively easy one. Within a few months she had a job making almost $20K more than her previous position. Our situations had completely changed. I was back in the game. When we moved we had a net worth of about $60K. We were both 28 years old.