Though I became a veteran by definition when I separated from the Army four years ago, it has been difficult to view myself as a veteran in actuality. Veterans were the grizzled old men who fought in Vietnam, or maybe former Green Berets who deployed to Iraq. While I got out, my teammates were returning to Afghanistan for second, third, and fourth tours. “Veteran” connotes the past, but my past was not the past to me because it was the present of my former teammates — friends with whom I share some of the deepest bonds possible.
My cognitive dissonance ended suddenly and terribly as Kandahar, then Helmand, then Uruzgan — places I dared to think we had made a difference — all fell within a matter of weeks. Until then, it had felt foreign to live a civilian life while the friends I fought with continued the mission. Now I can no longer pretend that I am neither soldier nor veteran, as if there is a purgatory in between. I have had to take a deep and critical look at what my time in service was worth and what, if anything, it achieved. It is very difficult to point to much of a positive impact for the world or my country when all the patriotism-based premises upon which I based my early adult life fell apart, seemingly in an instant.
