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Courage is not the absence of fear, as some think; instead, it is the act of continuing in the face of adversity in spite of the presence of fear.

The guilt and shame that many service members experience related to the loss or injury of someone they served with are contrasted with the appreciation they have for life.

A paradox is something that seems like there is no way that it could be true. Like the Combat Addiction paradox: I hate war, but I love combat. Both of those things are true, but they seem like they shouldn’t be.

When a service member is deployed the spouse is everything: head chef, accountant, mechanic, troubleshooter, problem solver, mother, father, good cop, and bad cop. Their job is moving from a dual parent role to a single parent role and back again, constantly. The challenge is that this takes some getting used to for both the spouse and the service member.

The list was written from my own experience as a combat veteran, and from what I’ve learned from veterans in my own work; this post is looking at things from the other side, based on my experiences as a mental health counselor.

Our lives did not peak on a mountaintop in Afghanistan, or a jungle in Vietnam. They do if we think they do; if we see that as the ultimate achievement in our lives, and everything else is downhill and meaningless, then that’s what we will believe. That’s not the case.

My experiences don’t define me, and the Purple Hearts, TBI, and mental health diagnoses of my brothers and sisters don’t define them. I want to survive, and thrive, in spite of what I did and what happened to me...