Micheal and Lisa
Marie Graves
Romance Takes Wing
told her, “We’re coming to Vegas and
we’re getting married!”
Michael and Lisa were married in
the Little White Chapel on the Corner
with her best friend as their witness.
“It was surprisingly a sweet and sentimental ceremony,” she said. “We did
have a formal wedding just 10 years
later.”
PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
the military makes their assignment
decisions. We got married just a few
days after he asked me to ensure
that the Air Force could assign us
together. We had a lot of time in the
car driving from Idaho to Montana to
California to make all of the arrangements. We called my best friend who
lived in Las Vegas just a few hours
away from my duty assignment and
FEBRUARY 2016
Mike and Lisa were both in the Air
Force. He was stationed in Idaho
and she in Virginia. They met while
deployed to Azraq, Jordan in 1996 in
support of Aerospace Expeditionary
Forces (AEF II).
“We both played volleyball in our
off-time so we knew of each other
but it was on a tour to Petra and the
Dead Sea that we actually got to
know one another,” Lisa said. “We
both signed up for the tour individually and didn’t know anyone else so
it was just natural to hang out and
explore together.”
After Jordan, Lisa returned to
Virginia and Michael had a follow-on
deployment to Turkey.
“I didn’t expect to see him again
but as destiny would have it, I got an
assignment to Korea,” Lisa said. “I
ran into Michael my first night and
we were assigned to the same unit.
We had a group of mutual friends
that did everything together so I don’t
think we actually went on a date.”
Their friendship just grew into a
relationship.
She knew Michael was different from the rest of the group. “We
had our connection from the Jordan
deployment but he was more sweet
to me,” Lisa said. “He was always
there for me and took care of me. I
remember being really sick one night,
when I woke up the next morning, he
was sleeping in the chair because he
wanted to make sure I was OK. It was
that, that made me finally open my
eyes and heart to him.”
Returning from Korea, Lisa got an
assignment to California. The two of
them planned a trip to see friends in
Idaho, Lisa’s family in Montana and
Wyoming, then travel to California.
“We were goofing around,” Lisa
said, “looking at rings in Idaho and
when we got back in the car to drive
to Montana and meet my parents.
He asked, ‘Well... do you want to?’ I
said, “Are you serious?” He was.
“The wedding — that makes me
laugh when I think of it,” she said.
“Timing was a factor because of how
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