Rings and Anchors – Married Couple Brave Chief Season Together

Story by Petty Officer 2nd Class Travis Decker

Naval Medical Forces Atlantic

Portsmouth, VA. – The U.S. Navy has over 345,000 personnel among its ranks both active and reserve. Of that number, around 140,00 are spouses, around 38% of the total number of personnel. While the Navy does have programs in place to co-locate, it is no guarantee spouses will be stationed close to one another. Rarer still is it for couples to be in the same rate. The odds of achieving the rank of chief petty officer together are astronomically smaller still. The chances of a married couple who are the same rating, stationed within walking distance going through the same initiation as a part of the same class? Extremely low.

Despite the odds, that is just what happened for Chief Hospital Corpsman Eric Garcia, a native of Mission, Texas, and a biomedical equipment technician assigned to Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Force Protection Command , and Chief Hospital Corpsman Jessica Garcia, a native of Cranston, Rhode Island, and the Leading Chief Petty Officer for the Pulmonary, Respiratory Therapy, and Sleep Clinic assigned to Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command (NMRTC) Portsmouth.

“I was working night shifts as a respiratory therapist at the time and my phone rang and I couldn’t sleep anyway because I was waiting for results,” began Jessica Garcia, “I got the phone call, and I was extremely excited. I called my husband and told him, ‘Hey, I just got the call.’” She smiled at her husband during the interview, gripping his hand. Eric, not knowing he would also be selected, supported her despite initially being disappointed at seemingly not having been selected.

Eric Garcia continues the story of when they got the news, his own confirmation coming a short time later. “About an hour or so after her call, I finally was called and told I made it, admittedly, I was a little bit overwhelmed. I called Jessica and told her, ‘We’re going to do this together, we’re going to handle this all together. Let’s support each other the way we have been and we’re going to be all right.”

The future Garcia’s had met at Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command (NMRTC) Camp Lejeune just two years earlier.

“I had just gotten to Camp Lejeune,” began Eric, “I was trying to get my chief’s package reviewed by one of my favorite [Command Master Chiefs], Jason Roeder, I had unknowingly walked into the executive spaces trying to figure out where our meeting was going to be. And-“

“He walked past my desk, so I had to go get him,” laughingly continued Jessica, “He told me he had an appointment and I said, ‘I didn’t set an appointment for you’, but he did have an appointment with our CMC. Later on, he ended up joining my committee’s for Recreation as well as the First Class Petty Officers Association. We started working together on the Corpsman Ball and the holiday parties and other events like those.”

The two would marry a year later.

Swearing into the Navy from Massachusetts in 2011 , Jessica Garcia was first introduced to a career as a hospital corpsman by her cousin who recently returned from deployment. Having been interested in medical work before enlisting, he urged her to pursue a military career, citing the training and certifications gained through service.

Wanting to help others, Eric Garcia joined the Navy in 2008. He served in patient intensive roles before discovering a love for a special role or rather a Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC), the hospital corpsman Biomedical Equipment Technician classification. Navy Biomedical Equipment Technicians are an electro-mechanical technician who ensures that medical equipment is well-maintained, configured and installed properly, will function safely, and is all-around ready for use.

After serving in the Navy 13 and 16 years respectively, the duo would enter ‘Chief Season’ or “The Season,” as it is well known, together. As if marriage wasn’t challenging enough on its own, Chief Season is a period of six weeks that tests mental and physical resilience and stamina. The intense demands of the process—long hours, emotional highs and lows, and the pressure to perform—can test not only your resilience but also your ability to balance work and personal life. For a married couple, this period may require additional effort to communicate, support each other, and navigate the strain it can place on both your professional and personal relationships.

During Chief Season, ‘selects’ learn from their respective Chiefs’ Mess, absorbing knowledge of leadership, history and heritage, and many other things while also being physically tested through various physical challenges. The Season serves to establish a foundation of fraternity with mentors and is truly the crossing from the deckplate, to deckplate-leadership.

“There were a lot of challenges over the weeks,” stressed Jessica. “We had to make sure we were very cautious with our time management. We needed to make sure we weren’t so overwhelmed with season that we couldn’t make the conscious effort to spend time with each other. No matter how late it was we made sure we weren’t only ‘season’ things that way we could nurture our relationship.”

“We did a lot together,” continued Eric with a chuckle. “’Season’ didn’t really stop for us. But we still did make that time whenever we had, even if we were just eating a frozen meal together for dinner. A few times, that was our time together.”

No two chief petty officer initiation seasons are the same. Heritage stands stalwart changing only in its presentation, but the locations, challenges, and most importantly the people all vastly vary throughout time. However, sometimes, that single moment in time, with all the challenges presented, they are perfect for those involved.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t have chosen to do season any other way,” stated Eric with a smile. “I hadn’t imagined that period could ever be that great; but having gone through it together? I would’ve hated not experiencing it with my wife. Sharing those experiences, talking about the same things, assisting each other with those things. It was great.”

NMFL, headquartered in Portsmouth, Virginia, delivers operationally focused medical expertise and capabilities to meet Fleet, Marine and Joint Force requirements by providing equipment, sustainment and maintenance of medical forces during combat operations and public health crises. NMFL provides oversight for 21 NMRTCs, logistics, and public health and dental services throughout the U.S. East Coast, U.S. Gulf Coast, Cuba, Europe, and the Middle East.

Navy Medicine – represented by more than 44,000 highly-trained military and civilian health care professionals – provides enduring expeditionary medical support to the warfighter on, below, and above the sea, and ashore.