Navy Corpsman's Military Housing Journey: Part 2

A Corpsman's Wild Ride: From Barracks Blunders to Hurricane Home Hunt

Part 2: Key West, Wilma, and an Unexpected Deployment

Our beach bungalow bliss didn't last forever, of course. We spent the next month road-tripping across the Southeast, finally completing our journey in Key West. Lucky us! Our first duty station as a married couple was the Navy Medical Clinic Key West.

We settled into base housing and absolutely loved it. My wife worked at the child development center, and we pretty much funneled all her income into enjoying the laid-back, vibrant Key West life. Looking back, we probably could have made some much wiser financial decisions, but honestly, we didn't care. We were young, and Key West was pure fun.

My leadership, however, was surprisingly insistent that I get good renter’s insurance. I couldn't wrap my head around it. Why would I need renter’s insurance when I wasn't technically renting? I was in base housing, not getting BAH, just like when I was in the barracks. Their warnings about hurricanes seemed a bit alarmist. "Hurricanes? LOL... sure... when was the last time Key West got hit by a hurricane? Years ago," I probably scoffed.

But we did it anyway. And thank goodness we did. That year brought MANY hurricane evacuations, and in the end, we lost literally everything we owned in Hurricane Wilma.

Losing everything in Hurricane Wilma was a shock. Our evacuation orders sent us to Orlando, which, like several before, initially felt like a sweet mini-vacation. Per diem covered our meals out, and the Navy took care of the lodging. Due to my job and some collateral duties, I was part of a small team that returned to Key West before the general population. It was surreal. We saw sailboats marooned in the middle of the road, debris everywhere on US 1. Police roadblocks south of Homestead meant it was just us, law enforcement, and disaster recovery specialists in the Keys. Entire houses were simply gone.

Then, a call came from a friend about returning to Lejeune. His battalion was looking for Corpsmen willing to terminate shore duty and deploy to Ramadi. I didn't hesitate; I jumped at the chance.

When the Navy finally allowed all Sailors back into Key West, they housed us in the Navy's hotel and a couple of "resort" properties. My wife, our six-month-old daughter, and I ended up in one bedroom of a two-bedroom hotel suite. A Coast Guard Chief and his wife occupied the other room. We shared the kitchen, living room, and bathroom. It was bizarrely familiar, like living in the barracks again, but this time with a wife and a baby.

I quickly processed the paperwork to change duty stations, and it was approved. We drove back to Lejeune. It was just my Jeep on a trailer behind a truck. That was pretty much it. All of our clothes, what little survived, fit into a few bags. I had no uniforms, no gear. Everything in our house that was within about four feet of the floor had been destroyed – saturated by sewage, petroleum products, and who knows what else, then left to sit stagnant for weeks while the Navy assessed the damage and risk.

Anyway, we packed up our things and headed to Camp Lejeune. Because my friend had called and recruited me for the Ramadi deployment, I skipped the usual check-in office for new arrivals. Instead, I drove directly to his battalion. When I showed up, my new Battalion Chief made the necessary phone calls to get me checked in. I imagine there were some ruffled feathers: "That's not how this works... he was supposed to come here..." followed by, "Yeah, well, he didn't. He's here now, and he's ours." I just sat quietly, enjoying the unfolding adventure.

Remember how I mentioned being a high-performing dirtbag? That phase, thankfully, had passed in Key West. Funny how getting married and starting a family can change your entire outlook. While in Key West, I genuinely got my act together, started caring about professionalism and standards, and truly kicked it into high gear. Sadly, given my appearance, nobody could tell. Since I'd lost every uniform in the hurricane, I checked in wearing the nicest jeans that survived, a button-down shirt, and a nice fleece. These were literally the most professional clothes I owned, packed by my wife when we evacuated to Orlando. When I say we lost everything, I mean everything.

So there I was, waiting in a lobby at the Navy Personnel Admin Center on Camp Lejeune when one of the Chiefs I'd previously worked for spotted me. He grabbed a friend and said, "Remember that guy I said was a complete waste of life? Here he is..." I shook his hand, collected the forms for a uniform reissue, politely accepted his "compliments," and went on my way. A couple of weeks later, we found out my wife was pregnant, and I deployed two months after that.

My wife lived in base housing while I was deployed. When I returned, we decided it was time to buy a house. We looked at a few, and then one day, driving to a friend's house, we saw a "For Sale" sign. On a whim, I stopped, rang the doorbell, got some information, then called our agent. We had an official showing, and we made an offer soon after. We bought it and absolutely adored it. We had fallen in love with the daylight basement, a detached two-car garage, and woods with a creek running behind the house. It was, in every way we could imagine, the home of our dreams, a place we wanted to stay forever. We bought it with big dreams and immediately plunged into DIY projects, believing that since we loved what we were doing, everyone else would too. So, on the off chance I stayed in the Navy, and the even smaller chance I'd have to leave Lejeune, we figured we could rent it out. But that seemed highly unlikely.