I was 18 years old when I enlisted in California's state guard. Those who don't know me may not be aware that I'm missing my right arm, but I am and I was born that way. Because of my birth defect, I was turned down from enlisting by my first choice, the Marine Corps. Frankly, the Corps has some of the best advertising I've ever seen. Then the Navy and the Army National Guard turned me down as well.
At the time, I was insecure and not yet comfortable in my skin, so I really wanted the uniform, the automatic civic respect, and the big ego boost. I kept getting turned down until the state guard gave me a fair shake. This was in the summer of 2007 when the Iraq War troop surge was in its full heat and too much of the California National Guard was deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. California was desperate for Title 32 troops that couldn't leave the state.
I went in front of a medical board and the doctor, a really good man, Colonel Krell, basically asked if I had a pulse and then wavered me in. This was in September of 2007, when I was fresh out of high school and had a pompadour because I'm a huge Elvis Presley fan. It was hard letting go of the hair! This was my biggest problem in life at 18.
4 months later I got my orders to report for drill at the Installation Support Group at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos. From what both Sergeants Shultz told me (There were two NCOs named J. Shultz, one was in Recruiting command, the other was in CMH), I'm the first "amputee" in America to enter military service for the first time as an amputee since World War II. That was a cool honor, but it didn't pay the bills.
I was the ISG's Company Clerk for 4 years. One of the company Sergeant Majors, an ex-Green Beret named Balboa, dubbed me "Frosty", which stuck. Then I became a writer with the Public Affairs Office, where I learned journalism and the subtle arts of info ops as well as propaganda. During my 8 years as a weekend warrior I racked up a bunch of recruiting ribbons, I got mobilized for the 2008 wildfires back when gasoline was $4.67 a gallon, and I had the privilege of serving with the father of someone I knew from Boy Scouts who was killed in Fallujah.
Starting in 2012 I began working as a private military contractor. My first gig was being injected into trauma lanes (evacuating and treating the wounded) at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert, which was the last training stop before Afghanistan. I was part of a special group of cadre and contractors that trained combat medics and aid station doctors. In the first 2 years I saw guys breaking down in the field. You see, these guys had already been to war. My job as the wounded guy was to get my arm blown off while the instructors threw pyro grenades to simulate mortar fire, then fake (But very real-looking) arterial blood would shoot out of the bloody stump while I screamed for my mother. As you could have guessed, this wasn't great for their PTSD healing.
Most of the time I felt good about strengthening the skills and psyches of our Army's combat medics to help them save lives. Plus, the job was physically painful and required a lot of grit to be able to stand. It included helicopters, being dragged through rocks and gravel, tourniquets being applied to a perfectly good artery 6-12 times a day, and occasional IV needles. I felt good and full of pride for those things, but I never felt good about making grown men with Combat Infantryman Badges break down and cry.
After Fort Irwin I picked up other contract gigs working with Navy EOD and briefly with Special Forces. For the this work I was handed handed an AK47 and made to grow a beard and speak languages other than English. I had the privilege of training and working with some of the greatest Americans ever, our Iraqi interpreters. At least 3 of them had their homes destroyed by the coalition in the OIF 1 invasion, but they still served the coalition. A couple of them served in the new Iraqi army. They fought for the coalition because, like I did when I enlisted, they believed the mythology of what America is supposed to be, and they wanted that for their families.
None of us knew or realized back then that the War on Terror would become anther Vietnam--every battle won and every inch of ground given away while Congress simultaneously prolongs the war while accomplishing nothing. These Iraqis can never go home because of ISIS, or the independent jihadi militias prowling the cities. Our government broke that country and these guys who didn't deserve to have their country swallowed by war still can't go home. As an American with pride for American values, I'm ashamed of our government. This was done in our name and we're better than that.
When I got back to Fort Irwin in 2016 after 2 years working elsewhere, I saw a major systemwide degradation in the quality of the Army's soldiers and their performance. I saw what happens when people are broken. It was the worst with the 1/25 ID, the Arctic Wolves, whose leadership didn't seem to give a damn that their soldiers were going 3 days without water, and literally tipping over equipment just to collect the dirty dew water in plastic bags. Most of these Joes were good soldiers, but their morale was totally destroyed. They had toxic leadership from the company to brigade command level and felt as valueless as they were being treated. I had seen similar downward spiral in other brigades in the months leading up to that one. These are brigades here, groups of 4-7,000 soldiers at a time, with the same messed up problems. My managers also wanted to suspend me for claiming (by telling a cool story in the office during down time) to have been involved with an aviation mishap that they claim never happened. Nice try!
By the end of January 2017 I was done. I reached a critical mass with the US government's systematic abuse of its soldiers and with its disregard for the lives, property, and human rights of people abroad. NTC Rotation 2017-03 woke me up fully to the nature of the system. So I walked away. I tendered my resignation to the contractor I was working for at the time.
I can't be loyal to a system so out of control as the current government. One of my sisters was sexually assaulted by her company commander in Korea. Other women friends of mine were raped in the war, or in Germany, or here in the States. With each incident, investigations were botched or swept under the rug, and the offenders remained in the Army to prey on other vulnerable young soldiers isolated from their support system. I saw the betrayal of everything my Iraqi battle buddies fought for. I saw the growing civilian death tolls in countries America isn't officially at war with, as the Global War on Terror enters Year 17. I saw the way toxic field commanders needlessly yet recklessly endangered the lives of their troops (especially the 1/25!). And worst of all, big pharma has bought its way into the military industrial complex, and VA doctors are prescribing our country's veterans all kinds of pills with suicidal side effects. This is how the US government repays the men and women who volunteered to sacrifice everything to keep America safe.
That's almost a decade I'm never getting back, but it was necessary for me to become the man I am today. Today I'm a voluntaryist. I'm all for peace. I have an ideological home in the Libertarian Party and in libertarian circles. I have no loyalty to the US government, but I never stopped loving America. America is my country, my land, the people I grew up around, and the history and customs we share. These things are very real to me, not the legal fiction they call the U.S., which is ultimately just a conglomeration of people with a shared idea, a logo, and professional trigger pullers to enforce the idea. I love having 4th of July barbeques to celebrate that great act of rebellion in 1776, I love eating Thanksgiving dinner with my family in my hometown, and I care deeply about fellow veterans. I pray that our children won't experience the same history that my generation lived through.
Happy Armistice Day, everyone!