Exactly. I’m glad I did too. Who else would be bugging your ass on a Friday afternoon?
Don’t be, at least not for long. They want you to be angry and they want you to be sad…don’t be. That means that they’ve already won.
Hate, bitterness, discontent, regret, depression…don’t hold onto any of that $hi+. Doing so will eat you alive - and as my wife would tell you, the increase in your cortisol levels will then kill you faster than anything else (especially since they are often pathwaysdiabetes, heart disease, cancer…).
Seriously though, I beat myself up over it for a long time. A really long time actually, but then after being in the wrong place at the wrong time during my last trip down range things changed. After crossing over I was able to put all that stuff behind me, I realized that teaching and helping people meant more than any social status or monetary thing you could ever have. I was able to see that all the social indifferences, politics, and religious beliefs that people fight over is such a waste of talent. Only when you can let go of money, religion and politics can you truly free yourself. For me it took crossing over to see that, but it was after that when I was able to discuss things with my teams families. Things the government, the commanders, the Chaplin, or our units family deployment liaison never mentioned or knew about. Photos and videos from our work-ups and of us down range; things at the time I thought would have been too hard for them to see. That wasn’t the case. Often times it was the closure they needed. Some didn’t even know what happened that morning.
There are two sayings I’ve passed on to all of my guys, especially when things sucked and all we could do was we had to embrace the suck, grin and bear it.
“Are you on fire…no? Are you getting shot at…no? Are you on fire getting shot at…no? Then you’re doing better than some people right now.”
and
“Don’t sweat the petty stuff, instead, pet the sweaty stuff.”
