Derick Dillard has signed up for the Marine Corps and will head to Officer Candidate School shortly, launching a path that could take Jill Duggar Dillard and their three sons far from Arkansas. The 37-year-old will begin training to become a Marine Corps JAG officer and must first complete an initial training block in Quantico.
The move comes with a long runway, not an immediate relocation. Jill and the boys will eventually join Dillard in Rhode Island as he continues training, but that is still months away and only after he gets through Virginia first.
If he stays in uniform for a long career, the family could wind up at any number of posts around the world. Arkansas probably is not among them, and that would mark another break from the life the Dillard family has known since Jill married Derick in 2014.
Jill would not be the first Duggar family member to build a life outside the state. Jinger Vuolo moved first to Texas and then to California after her 2016 wedding, and she and Jeremy Vuolo now live in Los Angeles. Justin Duggar lives in Texas with his wife, Claire Spivey, while Jana Duggar now lives in Nebraska and Jackson Duggar is studying in California. Josh Duggar is serving a federal prison sentence in Texas.
The timing also lands while the larger Duggar family is still dealing with the fallout of Joseph Duggar and Kendra Caldwell's arrests, adding another public turn to a family that has already scattered in different directions. If the Rhode Island move happens as planned, Jill will be one of the few Duggar family members living outside Arkansas — and military life could keep moving that map every few years.
