I AM a Veteran
On July 3rd of this year I will be officially, Honorably Discharged from the U.S. Coast Guard.
Most days I feel amazed that I have traveled on this 8 year journey. Although only 5 years of that journey were active duty, they have all made a huge impact on my life and how I do things.
And yet, some days I don’t feel like I even deserve to be called a Veteran.
I’ve never been deployed.
I’ve never served in Combat.
I wasn’t in a branch of the military some people even recognize.
I’ve never been on a cutter. USCG Cutter
I wasn’t pistol or riffle qualified.
Sometimes, I just feel like I did nothing.
I bulldozed the banks of the Mississippi river
I checked buoy lights.
And for 3 years I sat at a desk in a personnel position.
But then I have to try and remind myself that I still did something that most people, most women, never, EVER, even think about doing.
I have to remind myself that every branch of the military needs human resources people to make sure that all the other guys and gals get paid to do the dangerous stuff.
I have to remind myself that without me, those guys wouldn’t jump out of those helicopters. Rescue Swimmer
I wasn’t even 20 when I raised my right hand and took an oath to protect my country.
I had just turned 20 when I left everything I knew and went to bootcamp for 8 weeks.
8 VERY long weeks. 8 VERY scary weeks. 8 weeks where I tested everything I thought I knew about myself and found out that I’m a hell of a lot stronger than I ever imagined.
But, now I’m out. I’ve been out of active duty for almost 3 years and I won’t lie. The transition is still hard. I am a civilian now. A civilian that still thinks, in many regards, like a member of the military.
At work there are certain ways that you do things. Not everyone follows those rules I live by.
It is frustrating.
I feel different.
I don’t have many connections to my old life and it makes me sad.
Like a moth to light I am drawn to members of the military, but the are NEVER Coasties. Mainly because Coasties are hard to find where I live. There isn’t a lot of water here. So the members of the military I am drawn to have really different stories.
Stories I know nothing about.
Stories I couldn’t possibly fathom. And it makes me feel like what I did for my country, helping those other Coasties protect our homeland, wasn’t enough because I wasn’t overseas.
They always talk about the transition from combat to home. But they never talk about the transition of being in the military for years and suddenly being a cilivian in a world where you could actually lose your job, people don’t understand how you process things, and you have no one to share your stories with.
Some days…I really miss it. As much as I hated my job, I miss my people.
