Mellisa Bahn and James Helsel

James and I met while we were living in New Jersey. I had no intentions on dating him at the time, but he wanted to take me to The Cheesecake Factory for my birthday. After that we dated for a year. I decided to transfer from a community college to Florida International University while James decided he wanted to enlist in the army, but we remained together. 2 years of long distance had gone by but during that, time we were able to visit each other once every couple of months. In 2018 I took a break from FIU, married James, and moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I worked full-time for a year to save as much money as I could in order to return and finish my undergraduate degree. In 2019 James finished up his military contract and we both agreed that going to college is one of our goals. Thankfully we chose UCF! This semester marks our official one year of being Knights together and we are ready to Charge On until the end.