This will be buried but it’s my take on it and whatever…

So I was Army for a while - away from the wife and kid (at the time only one now I’m up to 2 I’m winning life) and it boils down to two separate issues: can the husband deal or the wife.

Men take a ton of shit going through military service so having solid ground back home is like winning the lottery. You never think it’s going to happen, you get excited it might, but it never does. I’m not dogging women in this at all but we are all just humans who want comfort in some way.

So I approach this from the woman’s side. She wants to know that’s her man. Only hers no one else’s. That’s the hero she married and cameras ain’t gonna make a shit stain difference in it. But she’s still scared so she asks for it.

Young men don’t have brains lol. We don’t think we just do. And I approach this with several years of learning from my mistakes. Which this man didn’t have. Yet. Hopefully now he does.

It’s easier to paint the woman the villain for not “supporting the ‘hero’” (yes that’s double quotes cause signing a paper is easy as hell) but to marry someone and just decided to leave… that’s not how the army works or any military branch for that matter.

Sounds to me like the man had a kid, decided that’s not the life he wanted, fucked that life up and here we are. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong but… here we are.

People forget all the time that life is a collective experience. We don’t just do this ourselves - as many times as I’ve lost my shit there are plenty of others out there that have done the same.

I believe if we lift each other up every opportunity we get we will all be better for it. Within reason, don’t elect sociopaths, but as humans we all evolved by helping each other. I love people. COVID fucked that up for me for a long time but I still love people. It’s just… say hi once in a while that weirdo might be a nice person you can talk to.

I remember a lot from school where my peers did that as well - something they learned from somewhere obviously, we were all children.

My son is given that freedom - he gets to experience the same life my daughter does, be you and don’t apologize. His room is painted purple because that’s the color he wanted, he’s got longer hair than his mom, he gets to feel things and express them in a safe space with understanding. But I can’t control what others do, as much as I accept him for who he is does not mean others will. So I try to teach him that if he is happy with himself, that’s all that matters. Be true to you kind of deal. Because I definitely didn’t get that.

Fear is unbelievably important in this conversation.

Fear is linked to anger for me in a lot of ways because that’s just how I survived for a while. Afraid? Ok fight or flight time let’s go.

Disassociating those two is a massive part of my therapy lol.

My wife says my brain is broken - because I’ve always treated everyone exactly the same. I wouldn’t say something to a guy I couldn’t say to a gal, it’s just not who I am. With that, I believe and understand that we all have the same emotions and should be free (within reason, don’t stab people) to express those feelings. Hopefully in a constructive way but sometimes you just gotta let shit out or vent.

I don’t believe it’s fair to treat someone different because “well x gender shouldn’t act like that.” Shut up you don’t know, none of us know for sure this jello we have in our skulls or how it’s going to interpret the information we receive or how that might make us feel until it happens. And even then, depending on the situation, it could be something we’ve experienced before and we feel a different way about it this one time.

I have a daughter, I don’t want people telling her how to feel or “you have to be pretty so you can get a boyfriend”. Be yourself, have fun, come work on cars with me and go fishing, go with your mom when she gets her nails done, be you. And anyone who isn’t ok with you being you can come talk to me. Gendering the way we feel or how we should react is just stupid. I’m sorry you had to go through that.

I’m very stubborn so I don’t quit things I start. I’ll keep trying - thank you for sharing your story with me and for your support. It means a ton.

I think for me it’s just I’ve done it so long, I’m semi successful, so my brain is like “why change? Look at what you’ve done if you change now, what if it all goes away?” And rationally I know that won’t happened but that’s that mid-west upbringing biting me in the ass.

I’m fortunate to have a lot of very supportive male friends and we all tell each other this as often as we can: you only fail if you stop trying. So long as you get up and attempt the work, you’re not failing, you’re learning. I’m hopeful I can keep that mindset and keep trying, and hope you can as well.

It’s not that I don’t feel emotions necessarily I just don’t know what to do with them. I was raised in a rural setting and so “be a man don’t cry” etc was much of my up bringing. I feel emotions I just don’t know where to put them other than shoving them down to be cut out with the cancer later or to blow up at the most inconvenient time possible.

It sucks. And I’m in therapy for this lol it’s supposed to be better! but a lot of it does come from this mindset that we don’t have emotions or are incapable of sharing them in a meaningful way. I’ve explained it a thousand times to people and only other guys have gotten it most of the time.

In my experience as a veteran with PTSD - not really. The only difference I can tell between my PTSD and someone who has family trauma from my therapy group is veterans want to hide from it - I did for a long time. It took an immense amount of support and love from my family to finally seek out therapy, and even then I still have outbursts every now and then. They are fewer for sure but it’s something I’m going to be living with for the rest of my life.

It will take a lot of patience if you want to get involved with him, and even more support at times. I can’t speak for every veteran though we are all different and everyone’s experiences differ in ways.

Hope this helps.

No that’s a different ideology. Not sure what it’s called.

True anar is no system at all period. Everything that happens happens and there’s no rhyme or reason for it. A bit like the ass backwards Murphy’s law people talk about. Like war without rules kind of.

What you are talking about is a collective source of responsibility that is shared amongst a community. You decide where your taxes go and what it funds, how it affects your life, and what the ruling body does with it.

I have no answers but I feel like that is a proper explanation.

I think one on daisy chained IEDs would be interesting. Most people don’t know that a lot of the explosive material used was either left from Russia in the 80s or was UXO fired in the country by the US during the start of the war. I had the unfortunate luck of encountering 5 155 rounds daisy chained - lucky I was back far enough to only sustained minor injuries.

That or how the US would pay locals to do mine sweeps for us. They’d been living with it so long they could locate and disarm them extremely efficiently.

Very well detailed and put together! We coupled the Rhinos with jammers in most vehicles as well so remote detonation wouldn’t work. Very nicely written!

I didn’t know about this. Thanks for informing me!

No joke. I still have mine from back in the day and I took notes on this shit and still have no idea what it’s about.

In the deepest pits of my soul - I hate you. I haven’t thought of that in 10 years damn it.

As both an HP fan and Top Gear fan… no… I’m so sad about this.