It’s almost 2am and I’m wide awake. It’s as good a time as any to start the blog I’ve been thinking about. I’ll be moving into the next significant thing soon, starting my career as a licensed social worker. Eight years ago I was getting ready to leave the U.S. Army after four years as a combat engineer.
I’ve spent the last eight years struggling in ways I’m just now becoming aware of. I’ve known all these years have been hard, but I had little insight into why. The last two years of grad school have opened my eyes to a lot.
Finding meaning in my experiences and my identity as an ex-soldier has been and continues to be a challenge. There’s a lot I now know about life after war. There’s more I still have to learn. There’s more this country needs to learn.
Twenty-two veterans commit suicide daily. We’re playing catch up, trying to understand why this is happening and how we can help vets. Many have committed themselves to fixing this problem but the numbers show that more is still needed. More voices need to be heard, stories shared and ideas exchanged.
I can’t say what exactly I want my contribution to these issues to be. I want to share parts of my experience in the hopes that others can relate, and encourage them to share theirs. I want to exchange ideas about life after war; the meaning we’ve found in it and how life changes in the years and decades after it.
I appreciate any thoughts anyone has. I’ve never had a huge web presence but this stuff is important to me and something I want to share more about. So thanks for reading my first blog post about it!