I served my country*

One of my classmates is a former Army Infantry officer and he was going on a rant about POGs. I realized that I have this kind of reverse-PTSD, for lack of a better term, about my service. I feel ashamed that, while I served honorably in the Marine Corps for five years, I never deployed. I sat safely at a desk for five years while my brothers and sisters travelled half way around the world and suffered the pain of imminent danger and the deprivation of home and family. I am embarrassed to tell people I served, not because I was admin, but because I have to tell people that I never deployed. I feel like I have to add an asterisk to my service. Yes, I volunteered my life for my country; yes, I would have gone had I been ordered; but I was never given the opportunity. I never deployed. I was a secretary that knew how to use an assault rifle. Yes, my work was important and I helped a lot of people with issues that substantially impacted their lives, but I never went. I never had that experience, and as such I can't quite empathize with those who have; I am set apart from those who have seen combat, even those who sat on the FOB the whole time. I should be proud of my service, in it's entirety, with no caveats or explanations, apologies or sub-clauses.

I am beginning to suspect that this might be part of the reason why I want to come back in to the service as a JAG officer. I seem to be drawn to things that make my life more difficult. It's almost like either I enjoy the misery or I feel like I ought to be punished for something. I tend to give all of myself to others, and leave nothing for myself. Returning to the service would give me another chance to serve my country and my brothers and sisters for real. Not just from behind a desk. I could do something real. I've thought about becoming a police officer to get that same feeling of reality. I've thought about joining a federal service. Everything I want to do involves the kind of work that wreaks havoc on your personal life and relationships. The kind of work that takes you away from all that. I have to ask myself why that is. Is it because I feel like I don't know how to have personal relationships? Is it because I feel like I find a way to destroy the good ones that I find? Maybe. I have had one serious relationship, and, though I know it wasn't completely my fault, I feel that I played a major role in it's ultimate failure. If I throw myself into a job that takes the possibility of deeper relationships out of the picture, then I can't destroy them. What a lonely existence that is. I don't want to be that person.

7 Days

As of today I have seven days left on active duty in the Marine Corps. It's a weird place to be. I spent the last five years of my life in the Corps, arguably five of the most defining years of my life. The Corps is very much a part of the foundation of who I am. I know that part will never truly go away, but the anticipated separation anxiety is a little overwhelming. The worst part is that I want to reach out to my ex, because I know he understands what this is like, but I just can't go there right now.

Joining the Marines is one of the best decisions I have ever made. People make the mistake of thinking that the military changes you, that they take you apart and rebuild you into something barely resembling your old self. But that's just not true. The service changes you, every experience does, but in reality it just reveals who you truly are. I joined the Corps to become a stronger person, mentally, physically, emotionally, but it didn't affect those changes in me, I did. The Corps helped me (or forced me) to grow a thicker skin, and to believe in myself for my own sake. No person has ever done that for me. I owe the Corps a serious debt for doing so.

Now I'm standing on the cusp of yet another major transition. I'm leaving the security of the only thing I've ever really given my life to. I'm wandering into unknown territory alone and I am terrified. I know I will succeed. I know that I will enjoy the same success I did in the Corps, but the truth is I don't want to leave my family, I don't want to leave my brothers. I know the language, and the traditions, the way I'm supposed to be and act. Things are simple. There are rules. It is what it is. Now I'm a stranger in a strange land, trying to learn the foreign customs, a new language and a new way of thinking. I had pride in what I'd accomplished as a Marine. I was good at my job, I earned the respect of my peers, my subordinates, and my superiors. I have no status now. I'm starting again from the bottom, and it's uncomfortable and awkward and frustrating. Sometimes it's hard to have faith in myself, especially when I'm staring down at my map, and the whole thing is dark because I haven't explored anything yet. But I will be ok. In the end, I always am.

Appreciation

The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at each other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.

 

Love after Love by Derek Walcott