James Hartnett

I have known James for almost ten years now. We went to middle school together and he was my first boyfriend. After high school he joined the Air Force. When I heard that he had joined the military, it didn’t surprise me one bit. Because even though we were young when we dated, he was still one of the most patriotic people I know, and still know today.

James has seventy-something days until his Date of Separation from Active Duty. He plans to come back to the States, and continue working in the same career field as he was trained. “I’ll be interviewing with Secret Service, the FBI and the NYPD.” He will go back to school full-time to finish his degree (which the military pays for) and will also be employed through the New York State National Guard out of Hampton Beach. “One weekend out of every month, I have to go to Long Island and work…the only downside to this is that I could still be deployed.”

James comes from a loving, supportive family, which helps him since he is so far away. He has been in England for the past two years, working for the Military Intelligence Unit. “Basically, I deal with reporting on terrorist activity in my area of responsibility…and send the information to high ranking officers all the way to the soldiers in the field.”

His job is intense, but couldn’t further explain to me what he did, for obvious reasons. He is excited to come home, even though he loves what he is doing. He went on to describe to me that living there is much different than here. “Everything shuts down at five o’clock and everybody’s in the pubs…They don’t exercise or anything…just drink every night.” He tells me that by any American’s standard, they are considered serious alcoholics. It’s not the drinking though that bothers him. “People [in England] treat their own military like shit. They get no support from civilians…I appreciate everybody’s patriotism [back home] so much more now.”