I miss war. I miss the late night self seduction in porta-shitters. The sand. The smell of gun powder. The God complex. The incessant need to religiously watch teenage TV series. Relentless dipping until your lip is raw. Then more dipping until your eyes water. Walking to and from places over shitty Loose rock simply to go get an OPORD.

I miss the sound of a Chinese 107 rocket screaming in at high angle or the profound cyclic knock of an AK//PKM. The sound of A10's unleashing hate. Midnight chow. The gym. The cleverly personalized chus . Throwing grenades in a draw with the hopes of mitigating enemy advance. I miss the rush of putting tension on a trigger with a person safely within the confines of a reticle pattern. The shit talking. The sweating. The prickly heat. The terps who cook legit Indig food. The planning.

The no sleep multi day // multi phase line ops. I miss laughing in patrol bases with like minded scumbags. I miss the fear. The adrenaline. I miss the mountains of RC EAST. The shit covered streets of Sadr City Iraq. I miss the tenacity and audacity of my enemy. I miss being able to purge my rage. I miss feeing like I was a part of something bigger than the Kardashians. Than paying bills. Bigger than 99.9 % of the trivial bullshit that claims the lives of an overwhelming majority of veterans.

You learn to let go. You acquire new goals and then set forth of obtain them. But...some of us....who've truly been in incredibly deadly kinetic austere conditions....daydream about what once was. The nostalgia is at times a bit much to mentally digest. We get lost in daydreams. With the increasing time gap between what was once "war" and is now peacetime it becomes almost inevitable that myself and others like me are passed off as mentally unstable or.....psychotic. Some of us are....but most....most simply miss our brothers and the irrefutable bond that was cultivated while enduring mutual suffering side by side.

A man will never have a more brilliant interaction with another man than he will while fighting to simply not die. No race nor religious belief has ever mattered to me while being shot at. I love and miss each and every brother I've ever shared battlespace with. Other humans simply do not compare. In the end we are left broken and in much need of rehabilitation.

Rehabilitation that is not there..or not there for us. So more often than not we suffer in silence until we succumb to an overwhelming statistic. Having sacrificed all of which we own we are left empty handed and battered both mentally and physically. Drowning in our own freaking minds. Left with a seemingly endless list of regrets, debt, and failed intimate relationships. Kill.

Edit:

For those of you who think I need a therapist. I have 3 therapists, a psychologist. Sometimes I have a golf pro for my dang slice.

I’m in a good place. I journal every morning. Sometimes good stuff like this comes out and I love the discussion.

I’m in a good place. I have a strong family who loves me. We’re happy financially. Our kids are healthy. My granddaughter is healthy.

It’s just some night…the nostalgia calls and I always answer.

But seriously guys I’m ok. Just sharing a big win I got from posting that. It helped a lot of vets. That’s why I posted.

Kill