How to Separate from the Military, in Four Easy Steps

You go out again, feed your demons with what they crave. You hate yourself again. You go to the gym and train yourself into a vomitus state. You almost feel alive again. You go home and field strip and clean your gun collection. Sometimes when you are cleaning your pistol you look at the barrel, not directly because you have been trained better than that. You glance at it from the side, like the pretty girl at the bar you keep trying to make eye contact with. She doesn’t look. You know one day she will.

You wake up again and hop on social media. It makes you feel good to argue politics with whomever posts anything you can argue about. Your ego eats up the “likes” as if it has never been fed but has always been hungry. You smile and don’t think for a minute how petty you are, if you do you shake it off. You are important and your time in combat grants you privilege.

You argue with the professors at school. Your grades are mediocre. You only try just enough, only participate just enough. When your parents ask how you are doing you tell them you are doing great. Lying has become reflexive. Integrity was something you gave up a while ago. It’s not your fault, you’re a combat vet, and you are supposed to be that way.

You look in the mirror one day and don’t recognize the man you see. You can barely look yourself in the eye. You’ve written a few emails and texts your ex to explain, to say you’re sorry. You delete them because you are scared. You can’t have a stable relationship. Your attitude poisons everything. You are a combat veteran; this is just how it is. You look in the mirror again. You lock eyes with the stranger in the mirror. This time you find the courage to stay. You flash to the thoughts of that girl. That beautiful girl whose attention could fix everything. You scream at the mirror. No sound escapes your mouth. You scream inside your own head. You are sick of being this way. You tell yourself this isn’t you. You remember what you were. How the old you would be so ashamed. The old you says you that you are better than this. You see yourself in your uniform, surrounded by those you served with. They tell you to get up. They demand you get up. You would do anything for them.

You call a friend you trust. You have seen him go through this. He changed, he writes about it. You thought he was weak. He said things that angered you. Not you. Your ego, and your image. He comes to see you. You meet at a bar, you drink, and talk. He tells you that he understands. You tell him everything and are honest for the first time in a long time. You feel lighter somehow. You sleep, a deep sleep, like you used to on the way home from missions. You wake up feeling ready.

You sit at the front of the class today. You help the kid next to you with a problem in class. You engage the other veterans in school. You let people in. You go to your parents’ house that weekend. They have given up asking you questions. You swallow back your fear as you tell them everything. You cry for the first time since in a long time. They cry with you and you no longer feel alone. You go home and sleep again. It’s getting better.

Months go by and while you step backwards at times you keep pushing forward. This is what you know. You learned to move under fire at a young age. You remember live fire training in the rain, and the sucking mud. You see your squad leader and you follow him, you look right and see your team leader firing his rifle from a knee. He is as immortal as a statue to live on inside your minds pantheon. You won’t let them down.

You meet a girl, and you take a leap of faith. Your friend gave you some advice and you follow through. You love her with everything you have. You let her in. You tell her those things you assume people with shy away from with disgust and horror on their faces. She never does. She never looks at you with pity, and while she never assumes to know, she listens. When she runs her fingers through your hair the world disappears. You remember you felt this way once before.

You know that you are finally leaving behind the burdens of your time. You remember the day you got your DD 214, of the chubby clerk who didn’t have time to help you. You remember the misery and the joy of being what you were. You stack up those memories in a great pile, and you walk away from them. You know where they are whenever you need them. You also know you can’t take them with you where you are going.

Now, you are ready for the final step:

4. You get out of the military

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This article first appeared in The Havok Journal September 26, 2016.

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