Page 730 - Total War on PTSD_FINAL

I learned a lot in that failure but not until years later. At first, I was angry at myself and the “long tabbers”, that were tab protecting in my eyes. Regardless, I re-enlisted as a 68WW1 (SOCM) and went to USASOC to support operations in Iraq as well as other key areas of interest in the region.
I went on to become a technically proficient Medic but wasn’t a very good Soldier. I didn’t like cutting my hair or wearing regulation boots. I didn’t want to wear those stupid PT uniforms that chaffed the crap out of my chest. This was the next step backwards for me because with that lack of care came a level of recklessness. I was caught with steroids and demoted and later kicked out of USASOC for improper PT attire in a DFAC. Sounds stupid doesn’t it? I can speculate that perhaps there was also some political maneuvering in there by some seniors I pissed off along my career thus far.
I ended up in the 82nd, a place where I was not very happy. I was destroyed. My motivation was gone, and I didn’t fit in there. I wasn’t indoctrinated into constantly berating your soldiers into forced compliance, and I certainly wasn’t into the baby-sitter mentality they had there. Stare at the painted walls for hours waiting to be dismissed because something might come up. I mean in the age of cell phones you think that wouldn’t be an issue, but there were also a lot of “shammers” in the larger units as well which complicated matters for leadership.
Regardless it was proven to me through my experience with the leadership that the seniors could not be trusted with anything. They would strive to find reasons to article 15 lower enlisted to buffer their “stats” to make them look better in front of the big-wigs upstairs. I left that place with a lot of anger inside of me that I couldn’t really control. During my separation from service they attempted to down-grade my discharge to other
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