Randy Weaver - After The Army

After The Army

On October 8, 1971, following three years of duty, Randy Weaver received an honorable discharge from the Army. That November, Weaver and Jordison were wed in a ceremony at the First Congregationalist Church in Fort Dodge, Iowa. In an attempt to impress Vicki's family, the couple arranged for two ministers to conduct the ceremony: a minister from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and a Congregationalist pastor.

After Randy and Vicki wed, Randy enrolled at the University of Northern Iowa to study criminal justice, and wanted to become an FBI agent. Weaver dropped out, however, because the tuition was too expensive.

Randy found work at a local John Deere factory; Vicki worked first as an executive secretary, and then as a homemaker.

The couple began to harbor more fundamentalist beliefs, with Vicki believing that the apocalypse was imminent. To follow Vicki's vision of her family surviving the apocalypse in a remote area, the Weaver family moved to a 20-acre (81,000 m2) property in remote Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and built a cabin there in the early 1980s. They paid $5,000 USD cash and traded their moving truck for the land, valued at $500 an acre.

At the time of the Ruby Ridge incident, the Weavers had four children: Sara, 16, Samuel, 14, Rachel, 10, and Elishiba, 10 months. Vicki homeschooled the children, and by all accounts was a devoted mother.