The down days

It doesn’t take much here to make a soldier feel completely frustrated and powerless. There are some days where you just decide that you’re completely fed up with this and that if the world made any sense at all then it would be time to go home already. The more you grow to hate this place the more difficult it is to drag yourself out of bed each day. Some days, when you don’t get called out on missions, getting out of bed doesn’t even cross your mind and you simply don’t do it. You convince yourself that if you could just stay curled up sleeping long enough you would wake up one day to find that it’s time to pack up your things and get the hell out of Dodge.

I think this sense of total exhaustion hits just about everyone at some point or another. Whether it’s a series of missions, infighting of soldiers, problems with Army policy, etc. there is a never-ending list of gripes that will drive you to the brink of insanity. Sometimes you just need to take a time out for yourself and get your head back in the game. This job can be pretty stressful and sometimes all it takes is one little thing to go wrong and you just feel like giving up. But most of the time you can snap out of it quickly. Other times you drag the depression around with you a little longer. A friend of mine had to take about a week and just not talk to anyone to pull himself out of a funk. For me, venting all of my frustration to my friends helps. Sometimes the right mission can snap you out of it. Recently I had a pretty bad week that culminated in a near fist-fight between me and one of my best friends. For days afterwards I was completely depressed and angry. Then one day we went out on patrol and I saw about a dozen of our kids standing in an empty lot. They squinted their eyes looking into the windows of our vehicles and when they spotted me they erupted and chased the truck yelling “Joey!” We stopped for several minutes to talk with them and see how they were. I came back from that mission feeling really good and all of the petty garbage that had been weighing on my mind didn’t seem to matter anymore. Shortly after we got back I went to my friend and apologized for my part in causing the fight. He said he was sorry for trying to crush my larynx and now everything is fine between us again. It only took a couple of smiling children to remind me why I do get out of bed each morning. Getting overwhelmed or depressed seems almost inevitable here, but hopefully it fades quickly and you carry on as always.