by Jillian Fell

Created on: October 17, 2008   Last Updated: November 11, 2008

I grew up in the Midwest like millions of others from my generation. Before I met my husband, I had very much agreed with my conservative, pro-life, Republican parent's stance on politics. I had no reason not to: political issues have relatively little bearing for a young middle class American with a father who has a decent salaried income and a mother who stays at home to take care of the kids. Though this right-winged haven wasn't enough assurance for my grandmother who gave me a solid gold-pinkie ring with an elephant carved in it and a diamond in its eye, on the condition that I promised to 'always be a Republican'.

The first election I was eligible to vote at was the 2004 race between George W. Bush and John Kerry. Of course I voted for the former. I was a little over 18 years old and not much had changed in my political opinion besides a juvenile sense of skepticism that hadn't yet become useful to me, because I still voted for someone I didn't entirely trust.

Fast forward 1 year and still not much had changed in my political views now that I was a 20-year-old college student. I was working two part-time jobs and going to the local university full-time. One of my jobs was at a small coffee shop downtown. Though the pay left something to be desired, I love the quaintness of the shop, the ease of the general duties, and of course all of the customers and interesting folk who wandered in for refreshment.

One of the people, who wandered in, was none other than the man I would marry. Though, I didn't know it as I made his order but my life and my opinions were about to change drastically. He convinced me to go out with him based on his
I'm just a hard-working solder looking to treat a pretty girl to a nice date while I'm home' request, and though, this is not advisable in the least, we were married very soon after that first date and I joined the ranks of American Army wives.

I thought nothing of this at first: I didn't realize how being in the Army infiltrated every aspect of your life, especially, your political views. Suddenly, pro-life issues took a back burner to issues that were now of immediate concern in my daily life: namely, the war in Iraq. I was appalled at myself that just one brief year earlier, I voted for the guy who kept our soldiers in Iraq. I had kept the man in office whose decisions had kept my husband, thousands of miles away from me for almost a year. This was serious stuff and I felt for the first time in my life, that I had been looking

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