Have you ever felt like life put you in the right place and at the right time? Growing up, I had fun playing hose fights and chucking water-filled grenade balloons at family members. I remember being a little kid sticking my thumb over the copper-brown business end of the hose and spraying everyone in close … Read more
Two weeks into my first deployment, and I still hadn’t pulled the trigger. The outgoing unit was filled with stories of exciting engagements, near misses, and swashbuckling heroism, so I struck out on my first few missions thinking that I was in the Wild West, and that I would be coming back, Winchester out of … Read more
After coming off a flight from Germany to Baltimore, I walked toward my next connection to Los Angeles, feeling that my Air Force career was over. All I wanted was to get home and be reunited with my family. As I waited, I needed to charge my iPod at the charging station nearby. As I … Read more
During my time in Helmand Province, one of the deadliest areas in Afghanistan, my battalion of over 800 highly-trained Marines was tasked with a full-scale counter-insurgency operation. Our work was to be the largest Marine Corps-led helicopter raid since the Vietnam War. There were many ideas on the table about how to do this, including … Read more
I was done! Four years, zero months of active-duty Army service. I arrived at LAX craving donuts and fried chicken during the wee hours of the morning —I was ecstatic about the endless possibilities that await. As I exited the airport and gazed on the busy streets of Los Angeles, I remembered ten years ago … Read more
You know when someone does something crucial for you, something you’re not even sure you’d be capable of doing yourself, something so grand that you feel you’re indebted to this person? This kind of powerful feeling of indebtedness consumed my life and led me to march blindly in a direction that had nothing to do … Read more
I was returning home from Iwakuni, Japan, where I had been working as an aviation maintenance supervisor. My six-month deployment had been mentally taxing and endlessly tedious. I’d like to say that after returning from this six-month deployment, I was feeling like I was coming back to where I belonged, and that my family, friends, … Read more
A warm breeze, the smell of the ocean, soft flakey sand, orange-red skies at sunset, the power to make this world my home. The freedom to choose where I would live, what things I would do, and with whom I would spend time. This is what I call homecoming. It is coming back to what … Read more
I was coming home from a four-month deployment aboard the USS Enterprise. Despite the cold steel, ever present funky smells of jet fuel and human bodies, I felt comfortable and at home with my people aboard the ship. I was flying directly off the ship, from the coast of Virginia and back to Florida, where … Read more
It was the last day of the crucible, a three-day challenge that every Marine must complete in boot camp in order to join the ranks of the Corps. We were at Camp Pendleton. The day began at zero dark thirty. My hands shivered from the cold, my desert “cammies” smelled like a wrestler’s locker, and … Read more