NAVY HOSPITAL CORPSMAN, RET — The pediatric ICU after a battalion aid station

Twenty years in. The last decade I spent attached to Marine units as an FMF corpsman. The first decade I spent in Navy hospital wards, mostly with kids. When I retired I went back to peds. Same hospital where I'd started, different building. The thing nobody tells you about that transition is that the trauma doesn't compare in the way you'd expect. The downrange trauma was loud and brief. Peds trauma is quiet and chronic — a kid you've known for two years doesn't make it. That stays. What I learned: there is no hierarchy of grief. Don't let anybody tell you your civilian work is less serious than your service work was. And don't let yourself tell you that either. Both are real. Both leave marks.