Category: Chapter 1 – Growing Up

The Folly of Faith

For those who got scared off and thought I would be quoting Bible scriptures, have no fear. This installment is talking about faith, not religion. Faith has many forms in our life. In Chapter 2, faith was everywhere. Faith in friends, family, the car starting when it needs to, our POTUS will make the right decision, in our brethren, in our relationships. So, why is it we threw it all away in Chapter 3 of our lives until we hit rock bottom and then demand that which we have faith in to stand up and fight for us? Where the hell did it go?

Let’s start with faith in Chapter 1 of our lives, before our service to this beautiful country we live in. As children, most of us were given our faith by our parents. In my generation (insert, ok boomer, here) our parents handed to us faith in some God or idol or prophet. We were told that it was important so we blindly followed along until we were capable of making our own decision. Many of us were also told to have faith in law enforcement, our teachers, our religious purveyors, and our family. And we did, maybe naively, maybe out of our faith in our parental units. It was likely by rote. Just trusting because we were told to, which isn’t real faith, it’s following. More of a socialist-type faith than a democratic faith, to inject the only politics you will ever see me do.

So, then, we made the decision to join our Nation’s Armed Forces. Again, on rote faith that it “would change your life” or “its what you should do” or “it worked for your father, so it will work for you” or “do it or go to jail, boy” (totally different article for later). In basic training, or as you Air Force peeps call it, summer camp, we were taught to be trustworthy and to trust in our brethren, first by rote, then by deeds. As they say, fake it until you make it. And that is what we did. We weren’t sure about that kid from New Jersey or the farm boy from the mid-west. Hell, I wasn’t sure about myself. Slowly, but surely, we started to believe in something; the process. We believed that this training and spending 24/7 with like-minded soon-to-be Warriors would yield an unbreakable bond.

And then we went to our first duty station. And our next. I remember my second duty station as a young and dumb Private First Class. An aircraft rappelling accident had caused the severe, paralyzing injuries of a young Warrior and we were part of the accident investigation. Our task? Recreate the accident to determine what went wrong. “PFC Bean, grab your gear and meet us at the rappel tower.” So, down we went to the tower. The concept? Throw PFC Bean off the rappel tower in various possible screwed up ways to see if we could recreate it. Cool. Wait, what? You want to do what? Trust me, said then SSG Stone, someone who would be my best friend and big brother to my daughter, and then later be killed in action by friendly fire in some country called Crapistan or something. So, I looked into his eyes and trusted him, over and over again as I launched myself off and inverted so many times I became violently sick. But, I wasn’t scared. I trusted him, and so, it began.

And so, I spent 23 years implicitly trusting my brethren. Ridiculous amounts of time on the range with newer Warriors handling machine guns, live fire exercises, rock climbing, scaling Mt McKinley tied to two brothers with thousands of feet of death on both sides of a two foot wide summit ridge. Never a flinch. These are only a few stories that we can all share. Many people reading this have multiple deployments in multiple theaters trusting their brethren. Along with that faith in the Warrior’s beside us, we had faith in so many things. Faith that our spouse was taking care of the household, our children, our very existence in the outside world. We trusted in our immediate and distant leadership that what we were doing was for good reason and well planned. We trusted that Uncle Sugar would take care of us if something bad happened like an injury or worse, like if we had to travel home under a red, white, and blue draped coffin. We just had faith. Some would call it reckless trust. Sure, I can see that. When I gather with my brethren, we tell these war stories as if to challenge the other’s faith to see who believed more, like two vestil virgins on the edge of the volcano wanting to outdo each other. Those who aren’t around to tell their story were the first virgins to jump, and the winner of the faith challenge that nobody wants to win but will take that trophy any day of the week, still. Summing it all up, we had faith in so many things.

Then, we put down our right hand, took off our uniform, and threw our equipment, and our faith, at some idiot civilian at the CIF who we later realized was one of us, a retired Warrior. And when we went back to Fort Living Room, faithless, we had no idea what we had done. We had turned in our faith like a dirty canteen. We had zero faith in our employer, our family to understand what we were going through, our new “friends”, or any of our local and National leaders we once answered to. We now questioned everything we had faith in, everything. We questioned if we had done the right thing, had served a good cause. And the first time we opened the door of faith to folly, folly jumped in and refused to budge like a Sherman tank. Was ANYthing we did worth it? Is anything in this stupid new job of any value? Are any of my co-workers worth the $20 an hour they are paid? Is the Nation worth saving?

And then folly starts to infiltrate our self-worth. Do we have faith in ourselves? Do we have faith in our newly-refined meaning of life? Do we faith in our spouse? It’s not paranoia like many think. I have spoken with countless Veterans whose family think they are paranoid or don’t understand them. NEWS FLASH fo my brethren: you don’t understand you either. You think you know you and your reactions to certain things but if I were a betting man, and I am, I am betting that in your rediscovery of who you are and who everyone else is, you are portraying yourself as someone different than who you really are. It is only natural to think that we are still that cold-steel killer of commies, lover of women, beer-cooled, MRE-fed, barrel-chested, freedom fightin’ SOB we once were. Oh oh oh my brethren, well, no. If you have been following this blog at all, you would understand why Chapter 3 is very different than Chapter 2, for good reason. THIS is where we grow my brothers and sisters.

Seriously SGM, you couldn’t have just told me this crap up front? Nope. You wouldn’t have bought to it in without the reason behind it. We grow by understanding the levels of faith we have in things, the trust we let out, and the belief that anything can have meaning. So, it is time to gain back our faith, in anything. Time to fake it until we make it, like in Chapter 1. Listen, it is not going to be easy. Our faith will be tested and it may be disappointed. But, if we don’t have faith in something or in ourselves then we are going to struggle. The faith doesn’t have to be absolute, life or death. But when we have faith, we have hope. When we have hope, we have perseverance. When we have perserverance, we have success. If we are to have success in our transition from Chapter 2 to Chapter 3, we must start with faith.

So have faith my Warrior brethren. Believe in your family, the VA, your coworkers, your new friends, your boss, our neighbors, your local and National leaders. When you have faith, even a little, you let people in a little. When you let people in, you share some of you. Sharing some of you helps others understand you, understand our Warrior ways and makes Chapter 3 much easier and better for all of us. I have faith in you.

—SGM DTB—

Why Doesn’t God Love the Infantry Anymore?

Belonging. We long for it, we do many things, good and bad for it. It drives us to church, sports teams, civic groups, summer camps, bars, clubs and yes, the military. It drives us. The need to belong, a core part of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, makes us seek out similarly minded, similarly educated, similar in body type, race, religion, or creed, those with similar goals, etc. as we seek approval, camaraderie, to fit in, and a long-term other than self group.

In Chapter 1, we bounce from one group to another, trying to find the right fit. At first, our parents seek out those groups for us, hoping to find the right one for our success in education, church, sports, play groups, and daycare. The groups are likely more based on their need for us to belong to a group of their choosing based on socio-economic ties, what they belonged to as kids, or maybe something as simple as what they could afford. We don’t always like the groups they pick out for us, sometimes rebelling against our parents, projecting our anger on that group later, quitting the group or just caring little about participating. Some groups will be lifetime relationships that will bring us and our families joy.

As we near the end of Chapter 1, we start to make more of the decisions for ourselves, many times to the chagrin of our parents. Hanging out with the bad crowd or kids from the wrong side of the tracks brought stern warnings from our loved ones. But now, faced with the dissolution of most of our groups as we depart high school, friends going their own way, groups that don’t extend to adulthood, and our parent’s insistence to figure out what we are going to do with our lives, we look to belong again. Some group affiliations may be forced upon us due to opportunities or lack thereof such as college.

So, approximately five percent of us join the military. The reasons are many, from family affiliation, as my choice was, to stay out of jail, to wanting to belong to something larger and greater than self. The latter is often closely related to or referred to as serving my country. We believe that serving our country is serving the greater good, we will be like the person we idolized growing up, will be done with like-minded people, and will provide a better future for us.

So, in Chapter 2, we join the part of the military we think we will best fit in. I joined as an Army Legal Specialist, 71D. Spent a couple of years doing that and realized I didn’t fit in, wasn’t the type person I pictured myself as, so I joined the Infantry. I loved the law, in fact, I would have gone to college for it had I not been kicked off my high school hockey team and lost my opportunity for a scholarship. Well, I thought I did. But when I looked around at Infantrymen like Gooch, Gordy, Gray, and others, I knew my real place. So, I went back to AIT and became an Infantryman. During Infantry AIT, our Drill Sergeants did many things to get us to bond and become part of an elite brotherhood, to really belong. One was to guide us in our belief that the sun rises and sets on the asses of Infantrymen. WHY IS THE SKY BLUE PRIVATES? they would demand of us. BECAUSE GOD LOVES THE INFANTRY, DRILL SERGEANT we would proclaim, never loud enough for their satisfaction!

We believed. We belonged. We finally made it. We finally found THE group. It was no longer just a wish to belong. It was no longer only an ideal. We faked it long enough to make it. It was real. We lovingly snubbed the other MOS’s, the other Services, civilians, heck even family to some extent. Belonging gave us confidence, meaning, courage, trust, love, and faith in something higher. Wow, we believed, with the strength of a thousand less equal men. There was nothing we couldn’t do. Drink all night, train and hump a ruck all day, rinse, repeat.

Then, Chapter 3 came. The sky was no longer blue, God no longer loved the Infantry. Why? Why did He do this? He didn’t. We did it. We made such a big deal of our separation from this glorious world where all the women wanted us and all the men wanted to be like us. We proclaimed that this new life sucks, along with all the lazy tree huggers in it. New bosses had no clue. Friends weren’t loyal enough. Civilians just don’t understand. After all, we led men into battle, were accountable for state of the art expensive gear, and were finely tuned machines capable of great peace or extreme violence. And the sky was blue because of it.

The funny thing is, if you check, the sky IS still blue. The problem is the sunglasses you are wearing are tainted. They are tainted with anger, longing for something new seemingly impossible to attain, longing for the good old days, and the belief that Chapter 2 is actually all the chapters and is over now. Chapter 2 is over, Chapter 3 just beginning. We have to look around us and inside us to find a new sense of belonging. Not just at our old buddies but to new relationships. I recall being at a Toby Keith concert after an Afg deployment watching my brethren, only reunited with family members days before, all gathering together chatting. Not with family, but with those they long to be with. I see it everywhere.

It is time to work on new relationships, at work, at home, at church, at the bar, at a local softball league. Having that new sense of belonging will allow us to move into Chapter 3. The belonging will not be the same. It might be better, it might be less. But, it needs to be something. When I retired after 23 years, I thought I would never find the same sense of belonging, of meaning, of something greater than me with like-minded individuals. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I worked for the government developing combat equipment for my brethren for about 9 years. Very rewarding, very meaningful, surrounded by some like-minded people like Pack Man, Scooter, and Big Mike.

Then, when I left the government for warmer pastures, I thought it was over again. O for 2 Smadge! I work with like-minded people who help blind and disabled companies develop and field combat equipment. I also spent about 10 years with some awesome people running a nonprofit helping Veterans transition and thrive. 0 for 3 big guys! The point is, there is so much meaning to be had, like-minded people out there to help change the world, or at least your little part of it, and a lot of work left to be done using your greatness.

So, don’t forget to smile at the blue sky, have faith there is more out there for you, and do your work to get there. Maybe next week we will discuss WHAT MAKES THE GRASS GROW? Until then, be kind to yourself.

—SGM DTB—

Transitional Fitness

The whole of fitness is underdescribed in its entirety when we transition from Chapter 2 to Chapter 3. We are told to stay in shape; use it or lose it. A lot of us stay in shape. Pear is a shape, right? But are we doing everything we can to maintain our health? We don’t need to be able to pass the new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) or start up a Combat Fitness Gym, but we do need to take care of our whole health.

An article in Medical News Today describes health as “… physical, mental, and social wellbeing, and as a resource for living a full life.” Nutrition, exercise, proper medical screenings, hydration, proper use of prescribed medicines and supplements, mental health, hygiene, and social engagement are all part of this. In Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, we are taught all these things so it should be easy to maintain them in Chapter 3. If we don’t, why?

In Chapter 1, our parents, teachers, coaches, and clergy teach us the basics of what we need to know. Parents teach us about proper hygiene and health. Shower every day, brush your teeth after every meal, clean under your fingernails, wash your clothes, pick up your room, put on a hat and coat if it’s cold outside, etc. All these things, which we ignore, until they yell at us, form the basis which gets built upon by others in this and Chapter 2.

Coaches teach us how to build muscle and endurance through instruction and competitive sports. They reinforce hygiene making us change our clothes before and after the gym and have us shower so we dont funkify the hallways. Clergy help us with our mental health, teaching us about faith, calm, love thy neighbor but not his wife, be honest, have integrity, be good, help others. Teachers tell us about biology, the health of the human body, what food and water does for us and about illness and disease.

What do we learn in Chapter 2? Get off my grass! That’s what you should have learned Warrior breed. We take the basics we learned in Chapter 1 and fine-tune them, make them all mesh together to make us a high-speed, low-drag, MRE-fueled, beer-cooled, lover of two(men) and killer of commies. We learn that to be a good Warrior we must apply all these things with vigor or jeopardize the mission. Don’t shower and the enemy will smell you. Don’t pick up after yourself and the enemy will track you. Don’t maintain your endurance and the enemy will catch you. Don’t maintain your strength and the enemy will kill you. Don’t love thy neighbor and your troops won’t follow you. Take a knee, face out, drink water, change your socks.

Phew, that’s done. No more early morning PT. I love PT but the military sure has a way to suck the joy out of fun things. So, we work out a bunch less, celebrate with adult beverages while swapping war stories with fellow Warriors and think we are in the clear, maybe with some bumps and bruises. But hey, we are still young…right now. Eventually, we are in damage control mode wondering how we got this beer belly, can only do 20 painful pushups, creek and moan when we get out of the chair, and wonder why people at the bar laugh at us before we tell the funny story. Ouch, MEDIC!

What we haven’t done is use all of our skills, maybe at a slower pace, to maintain our health. So, what to do? Keep moving the day we get out, set up and maintain regular medical appointments, understand we won’t burn as many calories as before and can eat less, continue to help others, be kind and find something that occupies our mind when not working or with family. Let’s break each one down.

Keep moving. You don’t need to be Ranger Joe anymore, doing 2 PT sessions every day lifting massive weights and running so hard you blow snot bubbles down to your knees. But you need to work your cardio and keep your muscles working. Walk your dog a couple of miles every day. If you don’t have one, rescue one. Doing a good thing, saving money by rescuing vs buying, and is great for your mental health. Bam, 3 dead birds. Buy a used treadmill on Craigslist. It doesn’t have to be the top of the line and neither do you. Walk the neighbor’s dog, being kind and fit all at once. Work your muscles by doing your own landscaping. It will save money and use muscles that are more than just pushing weights in a gym. Volunteer at a food shelf. Moving cases of food around while helping thy neighbor who really needs it, win-win.

Medical screening. Don’t start on how the VA sucks, I get it. Comp and Pen sucks and so do some clinics. But some are good, too. The point…document your health, get screening for your ailments, referrals for specialist stuff. Seek a job with health benefits so you don’t have to rely on VA. Use TRICARE if you can. I know, the Marine Corps broke me, they should fix me. But going down the road of righteousness at the expense of your health may be a plan worth re-thinking. Don’t give up, but don’t throw the big fat baby out with the bathwater.

Mental health. This needs an entire subdivision (installment). Treat it like physical health if it is broken. Stop thinking civilian Doctors can’t help you. They can and will; trust my crazy and counseled brain. But it is more than treating PTSD etc. It is about being positively, socially engaged with other humans, having a job to motivate us and challenge our brains, loving another human or dog or stupid cat, helping our fellow man to give us faith in ourselves and others. It is so many things, easily done. It is not ruminating that Chapter 3 sucks, non-Warriors don’t understand, Chapter 3 is meaningless, I am meaningless. Sounds kind of dumb when you see it written down, doesnt it.

So, let’s maintain our health, wholly. It’s not just pushups, situps, and a 2-mile run. It is maintaining the whole of our self.

Sergeant Major is done talking now. You can open your soup cooler and help your fellow Warriors with examples of what you do.

—SGM DTB—

3 Stages of Dependency

As I am breaking down the entire life of a Veteran, childhood (Chapter 1), Service (Chapter 2), and post-Service (Chapter 3), so I shall break down each stage using the phases of dependence; totally dependent on others, partially dependent on others, mostly independent. I use the modifiers totally, partially, and mostly against what is normally an absolute state, dependent or independent. I do not believe that it can be an absolute state, either way, except in cases to the extreme left or right of center and likely can not be maintained for long periods with success. So, I will use the modifiers.

When I speak of dependency, I am referring to being dependent upon someone or something to aid in the pillars of life I will explore related to Veterans’ lives; family, fun, friends, faith, employment, community, and service.

In Chapter 1, our childhood, the goal of our parents is to get us through the 3 Stages of Dependency to Chapter 2, to get to the next stage. As we are born, we are totally dependent upon others for success. Success at this stage is simply to live and grow our tiny bones, muscles, and organs. We are totally dependent upon our parents and other technically skilled providers for success. They don’t feed us, we don’t survive. Drs don’t recognize illness, we don’t survive. Teachers don’t educate us, we don’t grow sufficiently for survival. As we reach 15 or 16, we reach a state where we are partially dependent upon others for success. We may now have a job, a license and are educated enough for general survival. We still have a strong need for parents and technically skilled providers like Drs and teachers to help us get to the final stage. But here, we are able to move around, provide some for ourselves and make reasonably good, albeit not experienced decisions. As we hit the stage where we are mostly independent, we have gained some experience in the last stage, gotten smarter, are able to now head out into the world to fend for ourselves, get a job, feed our bones and our minds. Mom, Dad, and the technically skilled providers worked hard to prepare us for the next stage. Note that Mom, Dad, Doc, Teach and Coach were all preparing you for the next stage. Good work Team 1!

In Chapter 2, our Service, the goal of the military process, its leader’s et al, is to get us through the first two stages of dependency as fast as possible so we can spend the rest of the chapter at our peak. As we join the military, we are totally dependent upon others for success. Success, at this stage, is learning all the basic skills of a Warrior. We are totally dependent on the Drill Sergeants and staff to teach us how to shoot, move, communicate and medicate. If they don’t teach us right, we don’t pass to the next stage or if we do, we or a member of our team doesn’t survive. But, they feed, clothe, shelter, train, and provide emotional support for (note I spelled scream at you wrong) you. This prepares us for partial dependence aka going to our first duty station and starting to get the experience needed to apply our newly hammered-into-our-brains skills to. Here we have a chain of command, a Non-commissioned and/or Commissioned Officer to help us take those precious skills and apply them in the real, new world, more training. They are also teaching us about discipline, technical and tactical skills beyond self; how to fight and win. The career path, what we call the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) matters some, as different MOS are more aggressive in their Warrior nature than others. All are important and needed, some demand a different lifestyle. Regardless, with sufficient training, Sarge et al get us to the final stage of dependency in service, the ability to mostly independent, maybe lead others and make decisions at a significant level. Some of us spent 4 years getting to this level of independence, some over 20 years. But note, that this is where the technically skilled providers’ roles are different between Chapters 1 & 2. As a reminder, your parents, coaches, pastors, and Drs were grooming you to get into Chapter 2, whatever that story was going to be. Their entire success was measured by how you did getting into Chapter 2 and surviving. In Chapter 2, Sarge and Sir and Ma’am’s success are ONLY in making you successful in Chapter 2, not growing into Chapter 3. Their success is in making the entire force successful in Chapter 2. Chapter 2 is everything. There is very little thought about helping you be mostly independent in Chapter 3, the post-Service part of your life. Sure, there are some educational aids but most are left for you to figure out once you step into Chapter 3. And as we know, it seems we start each Chapter totally dependent.

So, here we are in Chapter 3, post-service, with a good or bad taste in our mouth about our service; we might be healthy or we might not be. We started out the last two chapters with someone taking care of us, molding us, teaching us; responsible for our success. But wait, who is in charge of that now. Me? Wait, what? Nobody prepared me for this. In Chapter 1, I was built up, taught and successfully released to the next chapter. In Chapter 2, they broke all that down and rebuilt me from the ground up. We will talk later about what they taught us. Now, at the end of Chapter 2, they have released me to the world. The transition took about 3 days on their part. Someone tries to convince us to stay, we say no, it is time, and they teach us how to write a resume, wear a red tie because red means power; how to not curse during an interview, missed that block; how to convert destroy the entire Soviet bloc or kill bad guys into something we can use as an appreciable skill. And go. Seriously, I was trained hard, had years worth of education, residential and online, day after day in the field, living an important culture that shined it’s boots every damn night, ate, drank and bled red, white, blue and different shades of camouflage and spoke acronym as a first language. And some guy in the Central Issue Facility ends my illustrious time in uniform by throwing my horribly dirty, despite never being used, canteen back at me and says square this away hero. And it is off to Camp Living Room, Fort Arm Chair, The Block, Mama’s House. This ought to be easy!!

Until next time.

—SGM DTB—