Another friend shares his story.

A friend of mine and I talk a lot, collaborate on projects and we deployed together. He sent me this today to share with you all. As I read it again and again, tears flow freely because I was there for this. This and so many other stories like this make us who we are today. So I share with you a story that will continue as he sends me more.

Some who don’t know me may think of me as an arrogant person. I talk openly about my success. I didn’t always think of myself as a successful person. People in my life convinced me that I was worthless. They convinced me that I would never amount to anything. That I would die alone with nothing to call my own. To fight this, I surrounded myself with positive reinforcement. I Googled positive phrases with inspiring pictures and printed them out. I tacked these subtle reminders all over my house. These reminders also asked me questions like, “Are you being productive today, or are you wasting the day away”?  Or “There are 168 hours in a week. How many of these hours were productive hours?” This made me want to focus on being productive with my day. I also put up words that would uplift how I viewed myself. These were inspiring quotes of historical figures. My whole life everyone told me that I can't. I was determined to change that mindset.

As a city mail carrier, I competed to be the best, fastest, and most accurate on the job. That is my competitive nature. But my focus is not on competing with others, but with myself. I am a firm believer in doing your best at what you do no matter what it is. Every day I took a stopwatch with me to improve my times. I was able to deliver a route in less than 4 hours. This was a route that usually took 8 hours to finish. This is the reason why I was the sole survivor amongst my peers of a round of layoffs.

Several months earlier I signed my termination paperwork along with all the other freshman mail carriers. While on my route, a manager drove to my route and told me that I had the best delivery times of the group that I was hired with. He proceeded to tell me that the postmaster wanted to keep me on the payroll as a city carrier. I came to work that day believing that it was my last day of work, but my hard work ethic kept me employed. My hard work paid off.

After work a few months later, I came home and drove to the greyhound station to pick up my brother. It was around Thanksgiving time and he was coming in from Arizona to visit. I drove him to my grandparent’s house and dropped him off. My grandmother told me that a package arrived for me and it looked like it was from the Army. My heart sank because I knew what it was. President Obama ordered the surge in Afghanistan a few weeks prior. I opened the packet and read the first few lines and knew what it meant. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to go because I already built a life on the outside. I was successful, even though some told me that I wouldn’t make it on the outside. NCO’s laughed at me as I exited the Army for the first time. They said that I wouldn’t make it. Then my Aunt told me that I was a loser and that I would never make it. These people only fueled my hunger to succeed. I will spend my life proving these people wrong. I will be a success, I am a success, and I will always be a success.

  After visiting my grandparents and finding out the news that I had to go to Afghanistan, I went to go pick up my wife from work. She got in the car and immediately knew that something was weighing down on my heart. I told her the bad news, she immediately started to cry. We had just got our first apartment as a married couple and were just getting used to our daily routines.

On Thanksgiving, after dinner was served and everyone was about to go home, I decided that it was time to break the news to the rest of my family. I was supposed to report to Fort Benning Georgia at the beginning of the year. Everyone was shocked and crying. Hoping for the best for me. The holidays were overshadowed with darkness. The darkness loomed in our household. We all knew that I had to say goodbye and that I might not be coming back alive.

The day of my flight to Georgia arrived. My entire family caravanned down to LAX. I kissed my wife goodbye and began walking towards the plane. As I walked passed the security gate, I looked back towards my family. All four of my little cousins were standing at attention rendering a salute. It was a sight that I will never forget. I got on that plane and left my life behind.

I reported to the Army and found a bunch of former soldiers just like myself. We all loved our country and wanted to serve, but we had all felt that we already served our time. We were all devastated but began preparing ourselves for what was to come. We had to be ready to fight and possibly die for our country. We prepared our last will and testament with the legal advisors in case we did not return alive.

My orders were changed and instead of going to Afghanistan, I was going to Iraq. We went on to Fort Sill Oklahoma for a refresher course in Field Artillery and then to Camp Shelby, Mississippi to prepare for the deployment. My wife flew out to see me in Mississippi. We had an amazing week but then it was time to deploy.

She followed our bus in a rental car all the way to the airstrip. She somehow got passed the guards at the front gate. I offloaded from the bus and went to go say goodbye to her. I handed her my last will and testament. I gave her a kiss goodbye and watched her as she drove off the airfield. A sergeant later told me “She drove all the way onto the airfield to see you goodbye, you have a good woman”.

I knew I had a good woman. The last thing I wanted for her is to make her a widow. I was determined to survive and make it home to her in one piece so that we can carry on with our lives and live in happiness once again.