News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Jocelyn Trask (center) is saying goodbye to friend Cady Hunt and brother Dylan MacKenzie as she heads off to Navy training.
Jocelyn Trask was looking for a way to better herself - and to see more of the world. She decided that joining the U.S. Navy was the way to do both.
The almost-21-year-old mother of two boys scored well on the Navy's aptitude test and is slotted for a technical job.
"I'll be an electrician in the cockpits of airplanes," she said.
Her husband, Tyler Trask, will care for their two boys, ages three and a year-and-a-half. That's the hardest part of the move for Jocelyn.
"It's really hard," she said. "But it's a guaranteed paycheck when the economy is so hard. I wasn't making anything here and we'll have health care and everything. And we get to travel."
There's family history of service in the Navy, which influenced Trask's choice. She also believes that the Navy is less likely to put her in harm's way.
"I'm all for being deployed," she said. "If you join the military in wartime... if I didn't have children I'd volunteer to go and fight. The Navy keeps me a little farther from the front line."
Like many before her, military service is a path to a better life. She said she joined "to get out of Sisters and go and do something with my life. I dropped out of college. I have two small boys and have been bagging groceries since I was in high school."
She doesn't know yet if the Navy will be a career.
"I have four years to see if it's going to work or not," she said. "If I love it after four years, I'll definitely make a career of it."
Trask, the daughter of Rod and Geneieve MacKenzie, will be in boot camp next month as she turns 21.
"I'll be doing pushups on my birthday," she said.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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