Biographie de Evens Obas
I was born in the Artibonite Department of Haiti on January 4th, 1978. I spent my first six years in a small town called Saint-Marc where I finished kindergarten. Later, my family moved to the country's capital, Port-au-Prince, looking for a better life and better education for us kids, as unreal as that might sound. The school system in Haiti was very different then. They were mostly private schools, which were very expensive, but my family did the best they could to make sure me and my siblings all went to school.
I later moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida with my siblings in 1993 and started High School in the 9th grade at Dillard High. It was quite different from what I was accustomed to back home in Haiti, but I did what I had to do and painfully made it through High School. I got myself into credit card debt early throughout high school; so I was living paycheck to paycheck. College would have been rough for me anyway at the time since I wasn't totally into school with all the debts that I've accumulated off buying cool sneakers and flashy clothes.
I knew I wasn't gonna make it at the average rate I was going with the average mindset that I had; that's when I decided to pay Uncle Sam a visit before it was too late. I quickly enlisted in the US Navy for 4 years right after High School, which I was able to use the Montgomery GI Bill to attend the University of Florida later on. Although I was out of the Navy and all, I had so much passion for the Navy that I had decided to stay in the Navy Reserve with the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB 14) to remain attached and connected to what the government had offered.
Got activated in 2004 and went to Iraq with the battalion for a year, and that was my wake-up call. After that deployment I decided I had enough. I was literally sick and tired of being shot at and getting hit by improvised explosive devices (IEDs). I did my time and paid my dues for this country. There comes a time where a soldier, a marine, or a sailor must say enough is enough so I made my decision to go back to school and finish up what I had started.
After graduating from Florida with a Civil Engineering degree, I quickly got a job working as a Nuclear Engineer in Kittery, Maine and started making some real money which I was able to use to finish paying off the little bit of college student loan that I had acquired during school despite having the GI bill benefit throughout engineering school. Ove...