Military Brotherhood: More Than Blood

Prior to military service, I did not have the greatest family life. I was fifteen years old when I was kicked out of my house by my newly married mother and from that point on, it was a rough road. For the next three years, I would live with a few different friends until I finally found a home with my friend Jacob and his mother, where I stayed until I graduated and enlisted in 2007. After enlisting, the word “family” gained an entirely different meaning to me.

For many of us, even those who didn’t have to endure the kind of upbringing that I did, the military became a kind of family that we could all learn to depend on. There is a brotherhood, whose seed is sown in our hearts during basic training, and it is watered and nurtured as time goes on. Constant training rotations, details, and deployments allow this kinship to grow and soon it is undeniable. It’s a force as strong as any, able to grant strength in times of need, and it brings us back to our feet when we stumble.

Many times, I found myself leaning on my military family. I married young, as many new and inexperienced privates do. She was my high school sweetheart, but even that fact didn’t help. During my first deployment, she had an affair and became pregnant; I was made aware of this fact only weeks after returning home. It is difficult when you are 19 years of age, just returning from Iraq, and coming home to find that the woman that you loved couldn’t wait for you. My peers and seniors didn’t allow me to dwell on that though. They took care of me, offering kind words and assistance where I needed it.

Years later, I remarried. I know what many of you are thinking, “Did you not learn the first time, guy?!” Of course not! I suppose I was a glutton for punishment. It lasted for a while though. We made it through the NTC rotation, a deployment, and a PCS to Fort Carson afterwards. Together, we had a beautiful baby girl and it seemed as though things were going well. I suppose everyone sees where this is going. It wasn’t fine. In the months after my re-deployment and subsequent PCS, I had changed. My wife noticed that I had become emotionally distant. Instead of focusing on my family, I dove head first into work and would spend long days working, often finding reasons to stay late. We had a huge fight one day in July of 2012 because I had volunteered for a shift on CQ so that one of the other NCOs could spend time with his wife. When I returned home from that 24 hour duty, my apartment was nearly empty, many of my belongings gone, my daughter’s room was bare, and my wife and daughter were nowhere to be found. I called a fellow NCO friend of mine at the troop after a few moments of staring in disbelief at my home. I can remember exactly how the conversation went:

“Dude,” I said.

“Yeah? What’s up Gunney?” he answered.

“My wife is gone.”

“Okay, so you have some peace and quiet. Didn’t you just get off CQ? Get some sleep, man.”

“No,” I explained. “She’s gone. My apartment is empty. She is gone. She took Zoie.”

“Bro,” I could tell he was taken aback at my explanation. “Stay there.”

He hung up that phone and I sat down on my couch trying to keep myself from completely breaking down. Within less than an hour, nearly all of the NCOs from my platoon had shown up at my apartment. The first sergeant had told them to take the day and make sure that I was taken care of. They arrived with a few dishes because I didn’t have any now. One of them brought me blankets and sheets because my wife had taken ours. Later in the day, they all brought me out to the bar and we sat and had drinks. They had me talk about everything and anything to get my mind off of what had just happened to me. Of course, some of them brought up valid points. They said that they could tell that things were going badly in my marriage by some of the conversations that they overheard at work while I was on the phone with my wife; I had to agree, there were times that I was angry on the phone. All in all, these guys kept me from losing my mind during that time. They kept me straight and let it be known that they were there for me. The next day at work we stood around smoking and one of them walked up and said, “So Gunney. I understand that we can’t poke jokes about your situation for a bit, but how long should we give you before we do?” The question caught me off guard, but something about it made me laugh and I shook my head. “Give me two weeks to grieve, man. Two weeks and y’all can start in with the jokes.” Everyone in the circle nodded and agreed to give me two weeks. As sure as the sun will rise, two weeks later, the same guy walked up and asked if it had been the full two weeks. I nodded and laughed and the jokes rolled in. I know that it sounds horrible to say that, but something about the situation made light of the events that had occurred. There is something to be said about using humor to get over something so emotional and, by God, those guys got me through it.

Fast forward a few years and I was medically retired from the Army, back in Kansas where I had graduated high school, and hanging around the same people that I had been when I was young. It was the perfect storm to bring me down to one of the lowest points in my life. I began drinking more heavily than I ever had. I also began doing all kinds of drugs. I don’t know if I was trying to kill myself, trying to numb some kind of emotional pain, or trying to feel some sort of rush, but it wasn’t doing any of those things. I started a new job, and things were going well... until November of 2015. I had taken off work for Veterans Day, because if there was one day a year that I was going to take off, it was going to be Veterans Day. I went out to the bar to have a couple of beers that night, but what actually occurred still scares me to this day. I arrived at the bar early, around 8pm, and had only planned to have a couple drinks before going home and getting some sleep because I did have to work the following day. I remember having two beers. I awoke two days later, had slept through the entire Friday that I was supposed to work, and most of that Saturday. I didn’t know what had happened the night that I went to the bar and I had no clue how I had slept through an entire day and a half afterwards. From people who had seen me that night, I later found out that I had gone to a few different places. I wasn’t my regular self and I guess I had knocked back far more than only the two beers that I remembered. I got scared and anxious and began to feel like somehow my world was just spiraling out of control. I called the local VA hospital for help, but I was just told to make an appointment. I was running out of options and so I contacted a few old Army buddies of mine just to talk. After hearing what was going on, two of them picked up and headed out. One came from Denver and the other came from Central Texas; combined they traveled over 1000 miles just to spend some time with me and make sure that I was okay. It meant the world to me that they did that. The picture that accompanies this piece is actually of the night that they arrived. Following that weekend, one of them told me to move out to Denver and stay with him and his girlfriend just to take some time to get myself back on track. Thanksgiving was that week and I wanted to spend it with family, so they both left, but the weekend following Thanksgiving, my friend drove all the way back from Denver to help me load my things and we drove back to his home. To this day I believe that he quite literally saved my life.

In the years since, I have found myself in some low points. I see my VA therapist regularly and take my prescribed medications for the most part on a regular schedule, but there is something to be said about being able to call my brothers-in-arms when I am in a really dark spot. There is nothing like knowing that there is someone there that cares that much, who has been there with you, knows what you have been through, and can really relate to the struggles that you are fighting through. It is something that, at least for me, I cannot get from my family, or a therapist, or any hotline. It is something that can only be provided by my military family. I lean on them and, when necessary, they lean on me. Just recently, I had a friend who was going through a rough time and nearly went over the edge, but, thanks to our close knit group, we were able to help. I believe that there is nothing like what we veterans have anywhere else in society. We are a special group of individuals. We have been a part of something greater and have learned the meaning of the word ‘duty’. It is our duty to one another to help those of us in our darkest of hours because family does not stop at who we share blood with, but includes those who we have shed our blood with.