The day I came back from the thing that nearly destroyed me

(What's awesome is it literally just happened this weekend, and now I'm sharing it with you.)

“I’m a monster,” I thought to myself.

“I and everybody on my ship should die for what we’ve been a part of.”

That’s not the opening to a really great book, or epic war movie. (Not yet, anyway.)

That’s the first thought that entered into my head, in the summer of 2003, when my ship finally left the Arabian Gulf and I knew we were no longer in real — or imagined — danger.

It didn’t matter that I hadn’t seen combat. It didn’t matter that, to my knowledge, my ship was never in real danger. (I learned years later that we actually were at one point — but I’m not sure how much of the crew knew we’d been fired on when it happened. I never knew.)

I simply knew we were returning from a war zone, and among us there were people who had fought, and people who had died, and the dead were never going home, and would never see their families again.

And we had been a part of making that happen.

I can’t go into the politics of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I didn’t know then, and I don’t know today, if we ever really had to be there. I only know that we were. And I, and others on my ship, were woefully unprepared for the realities of being in the United States military, and deploying to a hostile territory in wartime.

Because of that, I didn’t know how to respond to the imagined danger that we were in, or the real death and destruction that the Marines on our ship had witnessed firsthand in Iraq.

All I could do was think that because of us, people were dead. In my already anxiety-ridden brain, I thought that made us monsters.

I thought it made me a monster.

And I thought I had to be punished for the part I’d played.

That thought kept me isolated and withdrawn for the remainder of our deployment, going through the motions each day but never connecting with another person — or myself.

I lived that way for twenty years after the fact, until this year, when I moved to a two-bedroom apartment in Lubbock, Texas, to rebuild my life and reintegrate into society.

That was in January, 2023. Last weekend (as in, the last weekend in 2023!) it finally happened for me.

On Saturday night I went to see Mannheim Steamroller at the Buddy Holly Hall of Performing Arts and Sciences here in Lubbock.

(Somehow, they’d made Lubbock the final stop on their 6-week tour across I don’t even know how many states! And I got a free ticket to their concert on account of being a volunteer usher at the Hall, so… go me.)

Here I am, moments before the show started:

Live music always makes me emotional — and live crowds always make me on edge, and the two of them together bring up a lot of past trauma I typically try to avoid. Except for cases like being a volunteer usher, because no one pays attention to us during the show anyway, and if I do get overwhelmed, I can always duck out to the nearest bathroom, or go hide in the breakroom until the moment passes.

But on Saturday night, I was a patron. I had a real ticket and everything! And I wanted to make the most of the show. I didn’t know what the show was about to make of me…

In the first song, I started crying, hard. I’m talking like, I was a fire hydrant that just got run over by a Mack truck, and the tears were pouring down my cheeks faster than I could figure out what to do with them.

At first, I felt really awkward and a little embarrassed. The house lights were down, though, and I don’t think anybody saw that I was crying. And thanks to my military training, I know how to cry silently, so I didn’t have to worry about anybody hearing anything, either. So I decided to just sit with it, and see what happens.

The performance was like I was watching angels. It pierced me to my core, and stripped away all the anxiety I’d been feeling, and let me just “be” in this beautiful moment where it was just me, the orchestra, and the audience, all laid bare before me.

My first thought, once I’d calmed down a little, was, “I don’t deserve to be here, enjoying myself with all these people who’ve never been a part of war, who’ve never done the horrible things that I and my comrades have done. Who am I, to think that it’s okay for me to be here?”

I could feel my anxiety returning, and some of the guilt and remorse I’ve been harboring all these years… but as soon as it came, it went away, and the next thing I know, it was like God himself came down and spoke in my ear:

“Who in this crowd is more deserving of feeling this moment, and sharing it with everybody in this theater, than one who put his own life on the line to protect them, who did things they will never have to do, so they can enjoy moments like this, in peace and in freedom, safe from the horrors that you’ve known?”

“Who else would endure the trials that come with being a warrior and a protector? Why would you ever think you are less than the people you protect? You are their champion.”

And in that moment, it became very real to me that I and the people I served with in 2003 are not monsters. We are warriors.

We dedicate our lives to keeping other people safe. It’s not something that “comes upon us” when we put on the uniform — it’s part of who we are.

And all of a sudden, I felt part of the crowd, for the first time in over twenty years.

I saw myself as someone who’s willing and capable of putting the safety and welfare of others ahead of my own… and I realized: that can never make me a monster, or a coward, or any of the other labels I’ve given myself in the years since I left the Navy, and struggled to understand what I was so afraid of, that I allowed my trauma to consume me for 2 decades.

In that moment, I realized I was afraid of being a warrior. As a Navy Journalist, I was never trained on what it takes to be one. When the war started and I didn’t understand what was happening, or my reaction to it all, I convinced myself I was weak and incapable. And I lived that lie like it was going out of style… until last Saturday night…

When I finally saw myself for who I truly am: a fighter, a warrior, a protector, someone who’s willing to put the greater good before my own interests, and to lay down my own life if necessary to protect my friends, my family, and the American way of life.

That didn’t start — or end — with the Navy.

My PTSD made it so I couldn’t see this side of myself… but it couldn’t make it go away.

It’s who I am. It’s in my blood. It’s in my ancestry. It’s what God made me to do.

It’s unfortunate that I had to endure twenty years of trauma and torment in order to figure this out. But hot dog… now that I know it in my bones, no one can ever take it away from me again.

I thought so many things, because of my experience in the war, that just aren’t true, anymore. (In point of fact, they never were.) Yet today, I know:

I am valuable to society.

I am capable of contributing to the greater good.

I am worthy of living the life I desire.

As a veteran of the United States Navy, as a protector, as a leader — as a friend — I bring more to the table than I can even comprehend in this moment. I do it because I love my community, my country, and my freedom… and I know how important it is to protect our freedom.

And now, my job… my reason for existing… is to find other veterans… other first responders… other warriors… other heroes… other champions who are trapped in their trauma… and remind them of the goodness they possess, and the blessing they are to our society.

I don’t know, yet, what that looks like. I don’t know how that will affect my newsletter, or how it will shape my business, or the course of my life (what’s left of it, anyway).

I only know that it will.

And… that I’m finally ready for it to happen.

I am a United States Sailor. And nothing — not even my own trauma response to being in war — can ever erase that. No matter what else my PTSD ever tells me, I know, now, that I am good. And I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep that knowledge alive.

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