I
chose a different path, some based on fear, some based on duty and
ideals. Now I have to live with that choice. I'll always be behind the
curve when it comes to my peers as their views on what success really
means to them. I know that the people that truly know me and know who
(more of a "what", cause I didn't even know who I was back then) I was a
long time ago know that I might have been fully capable of getting a
good job and maybe nice things but I would have been miserable on the
inside. I have been in fights over my insecurities with good friends in
the past, and knew that's not me who ever I am.
I learned
valuable lessons through war. Tomorrow is never promised and struggle
develops character it either brings out the worst in you or the very
best. And I've struggled with feeling the worst and the best. I can't
change who I've become but it's better than what could have been.
Cause through war I learned Crossfit. Crossfit teaches me that there
are people who care about more than what they have and see today, that
there is hope that through struggle they will overcome and be better
tomorrow. Those people will pick you off the ground and help you rise
when the gravity of things just "seems" to heavy. That gives me
hope..... sometimes hope just has to be enough.
Man I think it's time to join a VFW or something. Iraq was such a big event in my life, I can't really believe I was there. It's almost a blur or it like it never happened. Yet I know it's changed many generations of families here back home. Some people have become stronger for it, some have never really come back emotionally and some never came home at all but one thing is true that no one is the same person. To say I miss Iraq would be false, to say I miss all the great soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors wouldn't and if those people I created those bonds with, asked me to go again, I would in a heartbeat.
