Austin Gamlin

My life started on February 18, 1986 in Fairfax, VA. The first three years of my life were spent there. In 1989, however, is when my family and I moved to the place that I still call home, Stafford, VA. I started grade school at Anne E. Moncure elementary and continued to attend until I turned eight years old. When I was eight, a defining moment occured in my life, my parents got divorced. My two sisters and I ended up moving to a small town called Nokesville, VA with our dad. Our stay there only lasted a year and a half due to my dad's understanding of our dislike about being away from our mom. In 1996 we moved back to Stafford and enjoyed our parents decision to share custody of us. We would stay a week with our mom followed by a week with our dad until we graduated from high school. Speaking of graduating from high school, I did, from Brooke Point High School in June of 2004. After that, three of my friends and I moved to Naples, FL to enjoy eternal summer and to live away from our hometown, which none of us had done previously (except for me and my brief stay in Nokesville). I got homesick approximately six months later and moved back home just after my 19th birthday. After that, I worked with my dad doing home inspections for about a year before I decided that inspecting homes was not, in fact, my calling in life. To help myself figure out my calling in life, I joined the Navy in July of 2006. I spent four years as a Sonar Technician (surface) in the Navy. I was stationed first in San Diego, California for Sonar training and I was torn between choosing orders on a ship that's homeport was there or going back to my home state. Once again, I was homesick, so the USS Barry (DDG 52) out of Norfolk, VA it was. I did a deployement and a half with that ship, and loved every minute of it. More accurately, I loved about half of every minute of it. When time came around to re-enlist, I decided that the Navy wasn't for me either. In July 2010, I was honorably discharged I