New LT

Kirk was selected for the intel program. Hardly suprising really - he already had a top secret clearance, it just needed updating for the years we were in college. His training class wouldn't start until fall, so his first assignment was to the same ROTC detachment he had graduated from.

One of his best friends started there as well - a first generation immigrant from Brazil who was right out of a classic Hollywood film, and they quickly picked up a third - a captian who (and this was a charming, intelligent, delightful man whom I liked extremely) looked exactly like Pinky from the Animaniacs. Kirk, Zorro, and a slightly dranged lab rat. It was a potent combination. They didn't do anything too terrible really, although I came in one afternoon to find Capt. Pinky on a desk belting out Nine Inch Nails 'Head Like a Hole.'

But the thing I remember best was the day Kirk's first active duty pay stub was handed out. We sat down with a piece of paper and a pencil and worked it all out. After paying bills and student loans, we were going to actually have money left at the end of the month - every month. We went through the figures twice just to make sure. What do you buy when, for the first time ever, you actually have disposable income? We took the kids out and got them each one set of new clothes. Then we got nervous and went back home. This whole money thing was going to take some getting used to.