My seperation. 7 days. [Update] · 5:35pm Nov 9th, 2024
I've been putting this off for a while now, along with a lot of other things. If you've been following me or have dove into my previous blogs, you know my history of medical issues and other struggles. From my last update, I was not successful in securing a medical retirement, which would have provided a more comfortable living situation and medical protection with better health care. I'm leaving with 100% disability and a medical separation.
My career has been, or was... both amazing for what it was, just as it is frustratingly, if not cruelly, taken away from me. Now that I'm so close to being let go and starting over, I can't access anything of importance, I can open up a bit more about some of what I've done and my background, or at least why I never spoke much about it.
Originally, I wanted to be a Marine like my brother. I come from a blended family, and all of my grandfathers served in the Army, but my brother and I leaned toward the Marines. Well, my (now) ex-wife didn't want to run the risk of me being another grunt in the infantry, so I abandoned my pursuit of an art degree (because we were broke as fuck), and I enlisted into the Navy instead. I still knew what I wanted to really do, and I pushed for the Navy SEAL program, but I didn't make the cut. They wanted me to be Nuke Tech, but I opted to be an IT instead. I figured if I couldn't go into the position I wanted to be in, I could be a communicator or the tech support that could go anywhere in the world, every single branch of the government and all other branches of the armed services go. Because, apparently, Navy IT has its hands in everything.
From there... I did what most blue-side sailors never do or even really know about. I became a sand sailor and took my first set of orders with an Expeditionary Command. I was a sailor in a battalion, not a shore station or a squadron. Mind you, this was going on back when the war in Afghanistan was more prevalent, so on my first deployment, my site was nearly bombed by Al-Qaeda. I wasn't even deployed in a combat zone...
Regardless, my command suffered more suicides than I thought made any fucking sense, my job was often high stress with high responsibility with shit tons of accountability, and I my wife was wanting a divorce. The few times we could talk or chat online, I had no real good news for her and I couldn't tell her about anything I was actually doing because so much of my work was Secret.
I came home, tried to patch things up with my wife. I thought we were on a better path. I thought I was really growing. I was even put on the shortlist for personnel to deploy the AT4 anti-armor countermeasures. Yeah! The guy telling you to try turning your computer off and on again; give him the shoulder-mounted rocket launcher... I miss shooting that fucking thing.
But my next deployment came, and that's when one of my senior enlisted was found to be dead, not more than maybe fifteen feet, where I had rushed past him in the same position. I won't, or can't go into details, obviously, but that's where my PTSD stems from. I remember what I saw, how I saw him, but I had orders and never would have thought that seeing him still posted up in that position, even if awkward, meant that he was dead. Had I acted on my instincts, he could be alive today, though I've been told there's no way of knowing, so I can't blame myself.
The shitiest thing was that he was someone I actually fucking really respected and looked up to. Even even came to me for gym advice. He wanted to go home and impress his wife.
I hate revisiting this shit, but...
So, I left my first command with undiagnosed PTSD, a divorce, an AT4 qualification, one of only a handful of sailors certified in completing a Corporal's Corse, and another warfare qualification that very few sailors on the blue side ever get the chance to even chance to board for. I left that command to run a network hub that was also a through-station for the nuclear defense of the entire Pacific region. To be honest, I hated that command, but the sailors I worked with were some of the best. They helped me deal with the loss of more family and depression that still wasn't recognized as PTSD and watered down to issues with my divorce and the string of deaths and suicides surrounding me.
I left that command to deploy again back overseas to the Middle East, another Expeditionary command, my bread and butter. ISIS was still a threat in the area since my command dealt with High-Value Asset Transportation and Protection. Only one event stands out where I was hunkered down on base in a Conex box to man my watch while the rest of the base was cleared out because of intel warning of bombs coming in that, at the time, we were not prepared to defend against... I could not leave my post, and there was no detection system granted to me or the only other guy standing watch with me. As the hours ticked by, I remembered my brother from another mother telling me about he grew complacent from mortar fire, and that if his time was to come, then he was ready for it. And that started to make a lot more sense to me. I couldn't do anything, and all the worrying I was doing wasn't helping. I grew bored, waiting for the bombs to hit. Then, a radio report came in that the current admin administration had intervened, and the target on our base was called off.
The last two commands I worked at surpassed levels of confidentiality of what I did and went beyond working on just Secret levels of classification, but the stress and nightmares of issues I had never worked through, some I still haven't mentioned here, grew more intense. Then, after taking both COVID shots, my body began to fail, and I had no escape. The night terrors were worse, I couldn't function, I was always in pain, my stroke, the seizures... My life is a mess, but in seven days, I'll be released from my service and hopefully able to recover.
These last few months, I've been trying to work through more of my issues and dealing with the process of my separation and other dealings. I'm still not in a good place. I've tried to work on other things, but my focus is always off, and I don't know how to properly explain why I can't do what I used to do to escape my problems and cope better while life is falling apart more than it was before. But maybe that's the issue.
Hopefully, when it's all over, I can focus more and actually put my mind right. I want to do better. I want to do more.
Thank you, any of you who have stuck with me or even bothered to read along long enough to finish this blog.
I hope you get better!
As long things are 'undiagnosed' they can reduce money the have to pay as far as I can make a comparison to german military.
Covid shot fucked me up as well... I lost a friend to it that had a stroke from it. Back than it was denied to happening trough the shot, but these days they were forced to admit it
Hope writing helps you cope, I unfortunately or fortunately was never allowed to the military because back than Germany was reducing its recruitment and down sizes what they could. Now they can't even afford to bring the military up again
I guess military and policeman having in general problems in the family is a cliche for a reason
High risk to life and health after all.
Any plans for the future?
By the way out of boredom I tried:
'mustard flavored tooth paste'... can't recommend it even with taste neutral toothpaste. It just tastes sooo baaad
Slowly, I'm managing things better.
I've met others who were disabled after getting the shots. Not nearly enough is being done to help people recover from it.
I don't know much about the German military infrastructure. The US has some bases there... that's about it.
Moving in with a brother of mine. Other than that... not sure.
That's just my running gag. Gotta keep it going.
After reading this blog, many of your stories made sense. And I also respected you immensely more than before. I hope that your life will get better.
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Thanks for reading and the kind words. I'm still having a hard time focusing and adapting, but I'm hoping that in time, I'll get it worked out.