If you get it, you get it. If you don't, google the phrase "Rock or something, MRE." Theoretically, the use of this image will become self-evident.


Copyright ©, Ben Shaw, 2023
no part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the author
(linking to this work, however, is deeply appreciated)

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29 May, 2023

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Today announces for many veterans the annual resurgence of some measure of guilt for having survived a conflict that one's peers did not, then the greater guilt of being relieved about it. This is not, nor will ever be, about them. It is about the man, almost still a child himself, who willingly positioned himself between an innocent and an aggressor and offered protection with his own body. The infantryman who, knowing the next step into no man's land was probably his last, took it anyway and fell. The woman who signed up as a single mom and learned during her first deployment that truck drivers had highest casualty rates of all jobs in the Army, yet still accepted the position of second vehicle in the convoy, never reaching her destination. It is about the father who, young wife and children awaiting him at home, crashes through the door of a house where his own Soldiers just went down, and never comes out again. The beleaguered souls huddled in trenches who went over the top...
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3. Let's Talk About Sex a Bit More...

...Because it sells, and because it is the axis around which young, hot servicemember love rotates. You’re in your physical prime, probably not immensely ugly (dress uniforms are a big draw even if you are), and you have indicated a willingness to go dulce et decorum est for your country. This carnal magnetism leaves two people (or perhaps more; who the hell knows) literally pawing at each other as frequently as possible. A stunning percentage appear to mistake this predator/prey interaction for true love and rush to marriage - seemingly right before he marches off to war. He white knights her for a bit, there’s the hormones, the dressing like you live in a military town (this is a real thing), some public groping, trips to the PX to buy some Army wife t-shirts, parading of the other in front of peers as a trophy, matching tattoos, more youthful bedroom stuff and then he’s gone to a combat theater. The end, please be sure to buy the second and third books in the series. But let’s fac...
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2. Things to Think About

(but will probably piss you off) - The happiest, healthiest veteran is the one you can’t find - Unless you’re carried off the battlefield in a bodybag, you will at some point return to being a civilian. - Being a good civilian is considerably harder than being a good servicemember or veteran. - The vast majority of those who serve will do so honorably; some will get out and go back to being the losers they already were. - Military service doesn’t break people; life breaks people. Some broken people find their way into the military and, for a smaller number, the military experience breaks them a whole lot more. - Military service has the capability of artificially sustaining some people who would have struggled with life whether they served in the military or not. If you’ve made it this far, you’re through the worst of it. Each of these will be discussed in greater detail in later sections.
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