From the field
Written by veterans about transition, mental health, and life after the uniform. Plain language. No marketing. No spin.
My father served in Vietnam. He never talked about it. He died in 2018 and I found his DD-214 in a folder under a stack of tax returns. He'd been a door gunner. He had a Bronze Star. I deployed three times to Afghanistan. After my third tour I caught myself doing exactly what he did — silencing th…
Eight years as a 68W. I thought transitioning to civilian nursing would be a straight line. Same skills, same urgency, different uniform. It wasn't. Civilian healthcare doesn't move like a forward surgical team. I had to learn patience with charting, with billing codes, with the slow tempo of a 12…
I went home expecting relief. Twelve years in the Marines, two tours in Iraq, and I figured the hard part was over. Within a month I couldn't sleep. The silence — civilian silence — felt more dangerous than anything I'd lived through. I didn't drink. I didn't fight. I just stopped answering the ph…