What "normal" becomes once you're in the military

When we were younger, everything was all about "Me and I". Why is the world against me? Why can't I work in management right away? Why do I have to study or work my way up? My parents and bosses don't do anything except make me do more work. At some point we decide for whatever reason that we want to enlist. Whether it was to get away, the need for money, the desire to try to better ourselves, or for the pursuit of adventure - whatever the reason, we did it.

Now we are forever changed. Our perspective on normal will be based on who we surround ourselves with. Our friends will be different, as well as our families. Or is it that we are different and how we view the world has changed?

We have subjected ourselves to being stripped of all comfort and stature. We’ve been treated like vermin and slaves; we are told what to do in the harshest of ways and in the worst ways. We are deprived of rest and made to complete complex training and tasks, always while sleep deprived, and with the fear of our controllers. Our individuality is stripped from us and we are turned into a small part of a larger being. We are needed but not necessary, so we must struggle to stay a part of the whole regardless of the embarrassment and degradation of who we think we are.

Within a few months, we found ourselves walking across a stage and were forever changed. No longer are we the normal that we knew. We are now a new twisted kind on normal.

Discomfort has become less and we no longer procrastinate as we have learned the negative consequences. Timeliness and attention to detail are now part of our normal. We work for weeks on end (and what normally would be considered double shifts) without a complaint...most of the time. We eat for calories and not for taste. We try and get taste but often times we just eat and walk away. Twenty plus hour days with sleep pockets here and there broken up. Weeks on without a day off and no overtime or compensation. This is normal now.

Extreme is the new normal.

When we have time off, we tend to be extreme. The pendulum swings as far to one side as it does to the other. Our antics, drinking, and hobbies would normally scare the average college kid, and yet we were still kids ourselves.

A “good day” at work means asking to stay longer on the job and do more. It normally has to do with bullets flying and explosives. Your job is to plan for the worst, and at times you will want what normal people would never want. But you have dedicated yourself towards being ready for that horrible event.

When you volunteer to push your fear aside and go to yet another school to do more abnormal things that will put your life in extreme danger, you are the envy on your normal friends. You will get into trouble when you return from your training and practice your new skills on weekends when you are off duty.

It will be normal for you to volunteer for more of the training that sucked while you were doing it for weeks at a time. You will continue to fight to attend the next school that will suck while you are attending. Seeking tasks that are difficult, hot/cold, uncomfortable, and generally terrible are what you now normally seek.

Pain, injury and illness are now part of your life. There will always be a medical specialist close by in your normal life. Your life will always consist of doing things that others run from. You will face extreme adversity in order to prepare you for any situation. You will always hope that you trained harder than your task at hand.

Normal vision is 20/20. You have something more now. It's not just what you see, but how much more you see and understand. You’re more observant than you have ever been. Your programming serves you well.

After Normal Changed

After your previous normal life changed to a new normal it will again change, but it will never be what you used to know as normal.

You will try to transition back into civilian life. It will be difficult at times because nothing is normal anymore. What they see as normal, you see as petty and boring.

Your coworkers will think you are a suck-up for doing your best and more than asked of you. You will not complain about hours or weekends worked.

This is your normal.

You will find that you don't understand how others are so frivolous and into useless fads. You will pull back from people who do not understand you as you can't understand them. Is this normal?

Then it will happen. You will find people who think like you on a normal level. They think like you and talk like you and have a twisted sense of humor like you. They understand you and you understand them. No one understands your level of normal except for these new friends and people like them.

You will hang out with these new normal friends and talk about how much things sucked and how much you loved it. You will talk about how you remember this guy or girl and how, even if you never see them again, you will remember that face and that name. You will remember that thing that they did that one time. You will remember how you kept each other out of trouble and helped get each other into trouble.

When you reconnect in years gone by with a friend from your normal days, you will introduce them to your friends and they will be instantly accepted as they are normal like you. There will be no color or religion. They are who they are, and you are who you are, and the differences are normal.

We normal people go farther for each other and do more, for no one understand us but normal people like us.

So when you feel like the world is closing in on you, remember...

You are Normal.
They are different.

Don't blame them. They have not had the Honor to do what you have done or seen what you have seen. It has not always been easy, but your life is fuller. It has so much greatness in it, it must also have an equal amount of bad in it. A normal life is balanced.

They have not been able to grow beyond themselves and accomplish what you never thought you could. They have not been able to continue driving on for their buddies. Because that's what normal buddies do. You have had closer friends than any of those other normal people can.

This is your normal.