One of the things I liked to do when not killin savages was solitary. I had a little hand-held solitary game. I would sit in my beach chair, wear my fav clothes and just not think at all for a few hours. Next to me, my trusty woobie (aka poncho liner) on my savage woven pipe frame bed, a little MRE and some flavored drink for sustenance. Oh and of course beside me was my trusty G3 in case of rocket or other attacks. All of this just to have some “me or quiet” time.
Sometimes while deployed you need some mental down time. Saving the world can be taxing at times. Being a warlord or super commando can or may lead to permanent scars, visible and not visible, even death. When I would get back after long missions, I didn’t want to make small decisions and did not give a fuck what was for dinner. (Always always when I came back from a mission someone always asked me what I wanted for dinner, lol!) I made life or death decisions everyday, all day; what’s for dinner was not going to be one of them on those days.
As much as you spin yourself up, you have to spin yourself down. This is mandatory to have personal balance. I can’t tell you how important it is to have a little downtime. I get asked all the time how do I become mentally tough or have good mind-set. It’s easy to do your job and what is asked of you. The easy part is making sure you never let down your brothers. But the processing and dealing with it at a later date is the hard part. So as much as I like the booze it’s only a hall pass to deal with the situation later. The hall pass makes dealing with these thing even harder because you’re putting time and distance between these situations and the resolution. This becomes harder and harder with time, distance and booze. My advice; find a hobby or something and mentally sort your shit out. Long term it is what you need for your mental health.
I learned the hard way, I can be an Asshole today or I can smile and try to enjoy life. I choose to smile, enjoy life and ever since then my life has been amazing every day. This is how enjoying life starts… chillin it with solitary. Lol.
Article courtesy of John McPhee of SOB Tactical
