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Shane Osborn on Families & Children
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At age 5, raised in Nebraska after parents divorced
Unfortunately, when I was 5 my parents began to feel the strain of running so many businesses on top of raising a family. Worse, Dad, who had seen the horrors of war and earned a Purple Heart for being wounded, had too many traumatic memories from
Vietnam. As the tensions at home increased, my parents agreed to a divorce.Mom took Lynette and me back to her hometown of Norfolk, Nebraska, where Dorothy, her mother, still lived nearby.
My dad was going to live in the same town, to be close to us, and for a while he did. But for his own reasons he moved on to a small town in Minnesota, and I didn't see him again for 6 years.
The divorce, and our family's physically breaking apart, was painful for me, but I know I couldn't change things.
Source: Born To Fly by Shane Osborn,p. 10-1
, Nov 13, 2001
Canceled wedding because he did not want to get divorced
A crisis loomed in my personal life. In college, I'd been dating a girl named Jen, who attended school in Colorado. We'd become engaged when I was in flight school. We were planning a big wedding in Colorado one week after I was scheduled to receive my
wings, but the more I thought about getting married, the more I realized I wasn't ready. By definition, my life as a young navy pilot was going to be unstable. I would be on long detachments away from my squadron's home base.
That was not a good way to start a marriage."I do not plan to get divorced," I said as honestly as I could. MY parents' divorce was still unsettling to me, and I wanted my marriage to be as rock solid as possible.
At first Jen was stunned, but she understood my reasoning. We spent the next day printing out and addressing don't-come-to-the-wedding requests to everyone on the invitation list.
Source: Born To Fly by Shane Osborn,p. 67
, Nov 13, 2001
Page last updated: Sep 05, 2017