I was hardly the first young man for whom military service was a rite of passage on the journey to adulthood. It had to be, for me. At what, today, seems like an impossibly young age of 23, I was given responsibility for a platoon, and I was expected to fight with enough courage and intelligence to bring all of my men home with me if at all possible.
A year ago, my former platoon sergeant paid me a visit in Texas, and the two of us reflected on that shared responsibility, marveling at how young and immature we were. The stress, both physical and mental, was immense. There’s a picture of me from the end of my first deployment to Afghanistan. I am shirtless, and I look emaciated. Days spent patrolling above 10,000 feet on one meal a day will do that to you.
Yet I look happy. I had survived, after all, and I was stronger, in so many ways, than I was when I had arrived. If those experiences do not help you grow you as a person, nothing will.
The war had the same effect on so many others.
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