The SHOWN Year Ahead

Maybe the Busiest of Our Lives

My ship in the navy, the USS Blue Ridge in a former USN photo of the week.

So what is step 1?

The year that follows is going to involve a ton of faith and belief in the logistics of the United States Navy, the Department of Defense, the TSA, moving companies, realtors, bank accounts, banks themselves, the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The month of August marks what is the 1 year mark of what remains of my United States naval career. It is the winding down but likely the most significant sequence of events that will occur thus far in my first 32 years on this earth, my family’s first 5 in existence. I feel the call of what might as well be the spirit of Manifest Destiny on the horizon. Exploration, life experiences that I can never forget, life long friends that I will have cemented and the courage to do it all and see it all. All of this is before the long haul back home to settle down in our first family home and the beginnings of life with what will be our new family of 5, and the 30 year mortgage.

This is one last hurrah in the Navy doing what I thought the Navy was always going to be. The Navy was supposed to be traveling the world and seeing sights a many. The Navy was supposed to be learning new languages and finding a wife maybe. The Navy was going to be the maturation of Zachary Schoen. It turned out to be most of those things except what most everyone I know thinks of the navy for outside of war time, exploration and traveling the world.

On the left is the new Boeing P-8 Poseidon and on the right is the recently replaced Lockheed Martin P-3. While I was stationed on Whidbey Island this transition had begun. These planes operate as submarine hunters and surveillance platforms.

Over the course of my first 7 years in the Navy I have spent most of it in mostly stagnant situations. My first command was based out of Whidbey Island in the pacific northwest, a “shore” command. NCTAMS PAC DETACHMENT PUGET SOUND TACTICAL SUPORT COMMUNICATIONS “TSCOMM” WHIDBEY ISLAND. Its a mouthful which many command titles are. Our mission mainly provided secure satellite radio and digital communications for Lockheed Martin P-3 and Boeing P-8 submarine hunting and surveillance missions. This includes us sitting in a dark windowless room maintaining those devices and machines and the radio circuits they provide, for 3 years. So it was cool and an ok introduction to the navy but not the “NAVY” I was promised.

Although something did happen while I was there though.

My wife and I in a picture of our front yard at our house on Whidbey Island.

I met a wonderful woman and now the mother of my going on 3 beautiful children. Jessica, I found you. I never thought it would happen but it did and you actually exist. You are the woman that my Mom always promised existed. She always said something to the effect of “Its going to happen to you one day and there isn’t anything you’re going to be able to do about it”. From the very beginning Jessica, you were undeniable. Everything in me said and still says yes to you. We are building something special and I can’t wait to take you on many more adventures until ‘death do us part’. Its true.

I found ‘her’. It was like it was straight out of a movie. Cliche’ I know, but it fits.

Jessica and I enjoying brews at the lake. I’ve used this one as my profile picture for quite some time. One of my favorites.

My second four years is shaping up to end on a high note. This ship, the USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) is going to be able to perform its tour of our AOR (area of responsibility) for the first time in almost a couple years. We have been sitting tied to Berth No. 9 on the pier for a vast majority of those 2 years. Prior to pandemic drama, the “Blue Ridge” promise was famously or notoriously said, that this ship is the best in the navy when it comes to visiting and traveling to foreign ports. Myself and fellow crew of approximately 1000 will make a trek in the waters of China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines et cetera serving as the United State’s 7th Fleet flag ship.

Memories will be made and money will be spent. I’m hoping that I will be able to get Jessica and company to be able to visit me while we are in a nicer port abroad. Her and the 3 ‘chitlins’ to coin a word from my aforementioned mother are going to make this a difficult ask but we certainly will figure something out.

When this ship comes back to home port Yokosuka, I will be in my last few months as an active navy sailor. I still have decisions to make in terms of joining into the reserves et cetera but I know at this point that I am no longer willing to be active and abroad. Its time to go home and grow this beautiful family and its roots.

Now, here come the logistics…

The United States Navy has been responsible for me and/or my family and deciding where we go and live for what will be the most recent 8+ years of my life. Our final flight or any form of travel paid for by Uncle Sam himself from TYO Tokyo, Japan all the way to our eventual final destination of EVV Evansville, Indiana, USA will likely take place in August or September of 2023. This significant evolution will be the last thing organized and executed by the USN on behalf of my family for the rest of our lives and from then on, they will say,

“YOU FIGURE IT OUT”.

We will arrive with our lives in bags in the stand alone terminal of the Great American and World Famous Evansville Regional Airport. We will be expecting our larger crate of our more permanent belongings to arrive sometime in the future. The navy generally moves at a snail’s pace so our bed and furniture for example will arrive sometime in the next few years or maybe quarter century. NBD.

During that time we will make due living with family for a brief stint while looking for a temporary apartment that can fit a family of five. All this while I start my work at my new job as an I.T. in the great new realm of civilian sector salaries.

This is going to be an eye opener. Have I been completely indoctrinated into the military life that I seem to regular people like a “military man”? Am I just going to look like that guy? I don’t think so, but how many times am I going to say I need to use the head or go eat chow, swab the deck, ironically say hoo-yah. etc before people make comments. That’s a small matter. Easy day.

Are we going to buy land? Are we gonna build? What about finding a realtor that isn’t just the friend of a friend of a friend’s realtor that they used one time during the divorce? I’m excited to use a V.A. loan and other veteran’s resources to build that dream. I think we will stay in the Evansville area for a time but building or buying that home will likely lead us to the surrounding areas all while staying within a couple of hours of our Hoosier and Kentucky family roots.

Lake house anyone? I say we just do that, I retire and just start a bait and tackle business on Lake Barkley. We’ll send the kids to tech school and we’ll all get awesome tans. Build the deck with that beautiful porch you see in Home & Garden and get into the Jet Ski rental business. Hell, local Eddyville, KY ice cream and burger staple Hu-B’s just got destroyed by a tornado, maybe that land will be up for sale.

Done deal.

Here’s to the next 365ish days. I love you.

My lake family.

My best cousin Mitch in the middle and My best friend on the right Fabian. Miss you both!