NAVY HM, 2001-2026 — The 9/11 enlistee, 25 years on

I enlisted in October 2001. I was 18. I had watched the towers fall on a TV in my high school cafeteria and I had signed papers by the end of the month. Twenty-five years later, I am retiring. Two tours in Iraq with Marine units. One in Afghanistan. Eleven years of shore tours in between, mostly at Naval hospitals. Three kids. One marriage that lasted. One that didn't. I want to write something useful for anyone who is at year four and trying to decide whether to ride it out or get out. Here is what I have learned. The military does not love you back. It is an institution. It is, on most days, a good institution. It is not a family. The people in it can be your family. The structure cannot. The longer you stay, the less you will know about civilian life. Plan now. Use the GI Bill before you separate, not after. Use TAP (Transition Assistance Program) like it's the only training you'll get, because it nearly is. The friends you make in service are different from the friends you make outside of it. Both kinds are real. Neither is complete by itself. And the war is going to be in your body when you take the uniform off, regardless of how much you saw of it. Plan for that too. Vet Centers are free. Use them.