Thea Pitzen, a business litigation attorney who worked in Gunster’s Jacksonville office until February of this year, discusses one of the toughest decisions she’s had to make as a military spouse.
Her inspiring story was published in the July 2013 issue of “Bars and Stripes,” the bimonthly newsletter of the Military Spouse J.D. Network, an international network of legal professionals working together to improve the lives of military families.
Pitzen joined Gunster in 2010, shortly after relocating to Jacksonville, where her U.S. Naval Flight Officer husband was stationed.
Over the next few years, she was kept happily busy advancing her career at Gunster – all the while enduring deployments that included tearful goodbyes, joyous homecomings and wedding anniversaries spent alone.
By Pitzen’s count, the couple had physically spent just 13 months together out of a total of four years.
During her husband’s second deployment they learned of a much-anticipated “shore tour” assignment in Virginia that would allow them more time together than before so that they could start a family.
As Pitzen says, “I always thought that the choice to leave my job and accompany him on that tour would be the easiest I ever made. I could not have been more wrong.”
Read the entire article: One tough no-brainer by Thea Pitzen (Bars and Stripes newsletter, July 1, 2013, with permission from MSJDN)
