I looked away deep in thought, and then I quickly looked back at the screen trying to make my decision. Did I dare do it? Would it work? Would it change everything forever? I was scared, I was nervous. My heart raced and my hands shook from the adrenaline that was now pulsing through my veins. I swore I wouldn't, I swore that I couldn't, but here I was. I watched as my hands moved across the screen in slow motion, and then it was done. Before I could contemplate what had just happened it was to late. Now I could only pray that I was man enough to step up, now I could only hope that the Warrior heart inside of me remained strong enough for one more battle.
"No one cares," they would tell us. Over and over and over again. They said that "the faster we accept the fact that no one cares about us, the easier all of this would be." You shake it off at first, you think to yourself, "no, that isn't true, my family cares, or my wife cares, or my girlfriend cares." Everyone could think of someone that they were sure cared. But after a while without even realizing it, you start to believe it. You start to accept it as truth, that no one cares, that no one ever has, and that no one ever will. And then you dig in deep. You drag your mind down to a place where it will see nothing but what is in front of you, to a place where you're surrounded only by the men to your left and right, a place where feelings are nothing and surviving is everything. Its weird at first, but after a while it goes from a mindset to a reality and no matter how hard you try you can't shake it. You start to hate everything around you, why? Because everything sucks, and if it doesn't suck, then you know something is wrong. Welcome to the life of a grunt, a life where we are taught to love to hate our lives.
After a while you get to a place in your mind where if everything around you doesn't suck or isn't hard, then something must be wrong. So you get paranoid, and you remind yourself that no one cares, and you start searching for every possible thing that could go wrong, and in some cases, you make it go wrong, just so that once more you can hate your life. Just so that once more you can believe that nothing is wrong, because everything sucks.
I'll never forget how I felt when I stepped off the plane. I was done with my training and I was so happy to be back in Texas. Finally I had freedom, finally I was out of that wretched-Marine-hating state and back to my home. I felt on top of the world. I was a Marine, and an infantry Marine at that. A born and bread pure devil dog killer. But here I was back in society. The first two weeks were like leave, it was great to be home, it was relaxing, but that's when things started going down hill. I went from going 200 miles per hour to nothing. I would pace back and forth in my parents house begging for someone to do something. I was the first one up, and the last one to bed. But the longer I was home the harder it got. Eventually that feeling of leave left me, and I realized that I was home for good, and that I was alone. And I started to realize that no one cared, no one cared what I did, no one cared what I had been through, and no one cared what I might have to go through. I know this wasn't the case, but because I believed it so intently, it became my reality, and I became bitter. I resented everyone I talked to because I knew that they had no idea what I had experienced and I knew most of them never would, and because of that reason I automatically assumed that they didn't care and that they never would care.
I was so hateful. I wouldn't admit it to anyone, but I judged everything I saw, and anytime someone made a mistake I was like a shark that smelled blood. And I was merciless, because I was no longer Jesse Carr the home schooled kid. I was now Jesse Carr the trained killer. Not only had I spent six months having "kill, kill, kill them all" beaten into my head. I had spent two of those months at one of the finest and most intense basic infantry schools in the world. I was being shaped, molded, and formed into a machine that would shoot first and ask later, that would die without hesitation in order to accomplish the mission.
As my days home progressed everything just built up. I was miserable because I felt like no cared, much less understood how I was feeling. I was alone, the only man of my type and I was stuck with a bunch of "gross and nasty civilians."
And like most stories it took a harsh awakening for me to realize what was happening. It took me losing the one thing I cared most about, it took me hardening my heart towards God and turning my back on everything and everyone in my life before I finally woke up and saw what was happening. And that's were I found myself now. Alone, struggling to repair countless relationships that I had inadvertently not just ruined, but completely destroyed. I found myself standing in a room, I was alone, I was empty. Everything that I had once held dear was gone, and that passion, that inspiration that burns deep in your heart to do things, to succeed, well, it was nonexistent.
My Warrior's mind was ever present, like any well trained Marine, but my Warrior's heart was bloodless, lifeless, because I had cut off the people and the God who nurtured it, who inspired it, and who gave it life.
My bones were so brittle and my hollow shell of an excuse of a body could barely move, but I knew that if I didn't move now, then I would never move. I knew that if I didn't start somewhere, I would never start.
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