A Veteran's Story on Veterans Day

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An interesting and thoughtful perspective on one's wartime experience isn't advertiser friendly, though.

👍︎︎ 54 👤︎︎ u/youtriedincomicsans 📅︎︎ Nov 11 2019 đź—«︎ replies

From one soon-to-be veteran to another, thank you for sharing your story. I was never combat-deployed but I won't lie, my time in wasn't good for my mental health, and I'm terrified of what the "real world" holds for me. I'm also looking to use my GI Bill to get a degree in education to become a hs math teacher. You're doing great work and I hope you were able to maintain a good headspace while making something like this.

Sorry if I'm all over the place lol.

👍︎︎ 32 👤︎︎ u/Thelandofmiguela 📅︎︎ Nov 11 2019 đź—«︎ replies

I don't get what he means about the photo at 22:00. Is it the casing on his helmet? At first I thought it was a bullet casing, but it looks like a pen flare.( https://imgur.com/JxpL04k ) Can someone explain?

👍︎︎ 29 👤︎︎ u/Kobalt94 📅︎︎ Nov 11 2019 đź—«︎ replies

The point he discuses at 32:00 reminds me of a quote from First Blood, where John Rambo says this in his iconic speech to Trautman: " For me, civilian life is nothing! In the field, we had a code of honor: You watch my back, I watch your's. Back here, there's nothin'! Back there, I could fly a gunship. I could drive a tank. I was in charge of $1,000,000 equipment! Back here, I can't even hold a job parking cars!"

👍︎︎ 31 👤︎︎ u/ashzeppelin98 📅︎︎ Nov 11 2019 đź—«︎ replies

I will always remember sitting on a porch swing with one of my life-long friends while she talked about adjusting to life at home after 18 months deployed to Iraq. I hugged her a lot and just listened. I felt so useless that I didn't know what to say. After watching this video, I just want to hug KB and listen.

👍︎︎ 17 👤︎︎ u/hopping_hessian 📅︎︎ Nov 11 2019 đź—«︎ replies

Great video, KB. Gotta say, my favorite part was you going through your chest of memories. I know it must have been hard to do, but you were so giddy when you found the soda cans and your stop loss patch and such, it's a very different side of you than your teaching persona. It just felt very real. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the video. I wish you the best, and thanks for making me know better!

👍︎︎ 15 👤︎︎ u/njxyoung 📅︎︎ Nov 11 2019 đź—«︎ replies

Great video. He did a good job of explaining why he had a hard time adjusting to civilian life.

He also explained the Instant Friend (tm) situation with other vets.

And made fun of the Air Force?

I served in the USAF from '91-'98. During that time, there was very little going on. I never deployed to the Gulf. I did 4 months in Southern Italy. My story is much different than his, and I make sure that I tell kids that.

👍︎︎ 14 👤︎︎ u/Jethris 📅︎︎ Nov 11 2019 đź—«︎ replies

@knowingbetteryt i guess developed a parasocial w.e. relationship with you i guess. when you were getting into the whole thing @~29:00 i literally shed a tear. Glad it all worked out for you

👍︎︎ 9 👤︎︎ u/Stuffstuff1 📅︎︎ Nov 11 2019 đź—«︎ replies

I'm not at all surprised that KB was a PT God. I remember when I first discovered this channel I noticed his forearms and could immediately tell he was very fit.

👍︎︎ 9 👤︎︎ u/Zapatos_Bien_Usados 📅︎︎ Nov 12 2019 đź—«︎ replies
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I’m a fairly private person, I don’t tell you much about my personal life and I like it that way. This is an education channel, not a vlogging channel. But if you’ve been paying attention, I’ve occasionally let slip that I am a veteran. When I was in Iraq- Well, I’m a veteran. I’m a service-connected disabled combat veteran. Many of my fellow veterans- Issues related to my being a veteran, for example. You probably know that I’m a veteran. Aside from having ferrets, it’s probably the only part of my real life that I’ve incorporated into my channel persona. And boy do you guys ask about it a lot. It takes up half of every Q&A I do, and while this isn’t a Q&A, stick around. This year happens to be a personally significant anniversary – this is me, ten years ago, today… In Iraq. You might have to squint, those ACUs were really effective… in the motorpool. I also recently hit 500,000 subscribers, so I thought it might be interesting to mark this dual occasion by telling you A Veteran’s Story on a Personally Significant Veterans Day. This video was brought to you by Skillshare. I need to get a few disclaimers out of the way first, hooah? That’s the first and last time I will ever say that word. Most of my videos are a fact-based story with the occasional personal anecdote thrown in… This video is the exact opposite. A personal story, with the occasional fact. This is my story about my time in the military and while your story may be different, that said… I’m not particularly special. Most of these ribbons are just for showing up. I’m not exceptional, I’m not the only person to take the path I did… and the military is huge. Each one of us only experiences a small slice of it. Also keep in mind, I’ve been out for almost a decade… I mean they don’t even use this uniform anymore. So a few small things may have changed since then. And lastly, while I don’t show or talk about anything that I think may be potentially triggering… We all have different experiences. I can’t predict what seemingly benign photos or topics might bring up painful memories for you. Only you can know that. So while I’m pretty sure this video is safe, if you’re worried, maybe don’t watch it alone or have someone else watch it first. With that out of the way… I was born into the military, my dad was a P3 pilot in the Navy during the Cold War and Desert Shield/Desert Storm and my grandpa was an aircraft mechanic in the Navy during World War 2. I was never pressured to join myself. But I was part of the Top Gun generation, I don’t remember ever wanting to do anything else… until I had one particularly good high school history teacher anyway. I grew up in Hawaii, which is basically one giant military base. This is a map of all the current and past military bases on the island, I honestly don’t know how you could live here as a civilian. Though, the other islands have much less military presence. Because of that, every high school on the island has a JROTC – which is an elective military class, somewhat similar to band… there’s even uniforms and marching. I would argue that it was more popular than football. My high school had a Navy JROTC, like it was fate, and I devoted all four years to it. What sort of stuff do you learn in JROTC? Most of it is pretty useless, a lot of memorization… The sixth general order is to receive, obey, and pass on to the sentry who relieves me, all orders from the commanding officer, command duty officer, officer of the day, officer of the deck, and officers and petty officers of the watch only, sir. …A lot of Uniform Code of Military Justice, maritime law, and map reading. But in hindsight, it wasn’t the content that mattered. JROTC is where I learned how to memorize things, I learned attention to detail – this is exactly fifty pixels from the top of the screen. I learned if you do things right the first time, so you don’t have to do them a second. You can learn these things anywhere, boy scouts, a job, band… maybe even your parents. But JROTC is where I learned it. And I was all-in, I joined and eventually led, every team I could. Drill teams, academic teams, marksmanship teams, and even special operations team where we built rope bridges across streams and stuff. I spent every summer doing some sort of leadership camp. I was very heavily involved, because like many, my end goal was to get a military scholarship - there was no other way I was going to pay for college. So what were my options? The US military is divided into several branches or services that each have a different purpose. The Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, and the “sometimes Y” Coast Guard. The Army is the primary ground force, the Navy the primary sea force and the second largest air force in the world, just behind the actual Air Force. The Marines are technically part of the Navy… and the Coast Guard… Look, if we’re honest, the Coast Guard is more like a law enforcement agency than they are a military branch, they enforce our borders and stop drug smugglers. They’re part of the Department of Homeland Security, and before that, the Department of Transportation. But they can, and have, been folded into the military on occasion. You know this famous picture of Normandy that you’ve seen a thousand times? Coast Guard. So as far as I’m concerned, they count… mostly. As you’ve probably picked up on, there is some friendly inter-service rivalry… but we’re all united in making fun of the chair force. Each one of these services has a reserve component. People who join the military part-time and serve one weekend a month, and two weeks a year, usually in the summer. These are federal troops who can be called to service by the President whenever necessary, like a war… or a manufactured border crisis… The Army and the Air Force also have National Guard units – these are also reservists who serve one weekend a month, two weeks a year, but serve both the federal and state governments. Most of the time, they fall under state control, but they can be called to federal service. The United States military would not be able to function without the reserves or National Guard. Before 9/11, they kind of had a negative reputation as Weekend Warriors who weren’t as well-trained or committed, but that seems to have mostly faded away because of Iraq and Afghanistan. But there are even more options, should you want to join the military even less than part time. These are the civilian auxiliaries, each branch has one, but the only two worth really mentioning are the Merchant Marines and the Civil Air Patrol. These are civilians doing civilian jobs, that during a time of war can be absorbed into the military to perform non-combat related tasks like transportation. These were all of the options in front of me. My senior year of high school, when I was deciding all of this, was after we invaded Afghanistan, but before we invaded Iraq. I wanted to be an Intelligence Officer working in cryptology. I was in honors and AP classes, and my test scores were good, but I didn’t have the grades or connections to get into an academy. So an ROTC scholarship was my best option. Academies are prestigious military colleges, like West Point or the Naval Academy, where upon graduation, you’re commissioned as an officer in that service. ROTC or “rotsee” is the Reserve Officer’s Training Corps – it’s just like Junior ROTC, but for college… and for real. After graduation, you’re commissioned as an officer, but unlike the Academies, you also have the option of going into the Reserves or National Guard as well. I applied for and got an Army ROTC scholarship. But it wasn’t a full ride, so in order to cover room and board and other expenses, I simultaneously joined the National Guard. Which sounds weird, but in ROTC it’s actually pretty common. It counts as time in service, so you get commissioned with four years already under your belt, but I was more in it for the experience. In order to lead, first learn how to follow. So while I was a cadet, I never once wore that rank, and thanks to my JROTC experience, I joined right away as a Private First Class. How do you feel today Mr. [REDACTED]? I’m feeling pretty good, pretty- ha ha ha. Sgt. [REDACTED] what’re you laughing about? He changed his diaper this morning he’s good to go. I did well enough on my ASVAB that I could basically pick any job I wanted. In hindsight, I wish I put more thought into that decision. Since I was in ROTC and college, I didn’t really care what my MOS was, since it wouldn’t matter after I graduated. So I chose the one with the shortest training time. An MOS is a military occupational specialty, shorthand for your job title – it’s different in every service, but in the Army, it’s a combination of a number and letter. There are different “branches” in the Army. Infantry, Artillery, Armor, Cavalry… they each have a different color and number associated with it. Infantry is sky blue and 11, Artillery is red and 13. When you see a rank with a color behind it, that’s what that means. I joined artillery, the king of battle, infantry is important too I guess. Why is the sky blue? Because God loves the Infantry. Yeah well, artillery runs in my veins. The letter indicates your job within that branch, A is an officer, B is regular enlisted, M is mechanized, T is a technician, and so on. 11B is a grunt and 11M is a grunt… but in an APC. I chose to become a 13B Field Artillery Cannon Crewmember, because that MOS only required me to take one semester off from school instead of two. I was in Fort Sill, Oklahoma from the middle of winter to the middle of summer – do not recommend. I did One Station Unit Training, which is Basic and Advanced Individual Training back-to-back, I actually do recommend that, get it out of the way. AIT is your job training, similar A School or Tech School. Basic Training is not at all like this and I doubt it ever was. Yes, there is a lot of yelling and it is very stressful at times, but if you go into it expecting Full Metal Jacket, you are going to be very disappointed. Every military member has a moment when they realize “Oh wait, this is real. I’m not a kid anymore and this isn’t a movie.” And it’s not the oath. In fact, they make you say it so many times, I’m not sure which one was the actual legally binding one. For a lot people, it’s the uniform. But I had been wearing uniforms since I was 14, so that didn’t really do it for me – for me, it was the helmet, which is weird. It was a lot heavier than I expected. Another popular answer I’ve heard is the M16 – while there are many like it, this one is yours. But I had also been shooting since high school, so meh. The M16 is the nomenclature used for the military version of the Colt Armalite AR15, with the addition of full auto or three-round burst. Everything in the military has a nomenclature. Most of them start with an M, the M16, the M4, the M240B, but there are others – usually vehicles. The 13B MOS also makes you a crew-served weapons specialist, I know how to take apart and put together everything from the M9 pistol to the Mark19 automatic grenade launcher. I was also posted as the ammunitions specialist for a while. But apparently, I don’t know anything about guns, if my comments section is to be believed anyway. So, I finish my training, go back to college, and I’m doing the ROTC and National Guard thing… and this is when things start to change. I’ll admit, I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder. I had been preparing for this my entire life, for all intents and purposes, I had been in the military for several years at that point. Yet here I am, learning everything again, for the third time. The first time was JROTC, it was just pretend, the second time was the real deal, and I was the guy helping people shine their boots and memorize their 9-line medivacs. I already knew this stuff, I was high speed. Yet here I was, marching in the freezing rain before class because everyone else still has to learn how to do an about face. Or they still spell military with two Ls. It’s not their fault, ROTC is designed to be your first exposure, not your third. So again, do not recommend, maybe only do it twice. Most of my time in the National Guard was fairly uneventful, one weekend a month, two weeks a year. I did keep up with competitive shooting though, and was on the state team for a year or two. This is also when I bought my first video camera, if you couldn’t tell – I’ve been doing video editing as a hobby since high school… a hobby that finally paid off decades later. Make sure to like and subscribe. Fast forward a year or two and my National Guard unit is activated to deploy to Iraq for the second time. I was in basic training during the first. They only took half the unit, which isn’t uncommon, and I was in that half – right up until one week before deployment, when ROTC intervened on my behalf. They did that for a few people and it was actually a bit of drama. I didn’t ask them to get me out of it, I was ready to go – mentally, emotionally, legally, I had it all set up. They thought they were doing me a favor. Suddenly, I had to reinstate everything and somehow manage to get registered for classes for the next semester with only a few days left. Suffice to say, I re-evaluated my life trajectory. I quit ROTC, I wasn’t contracted yet so as long as I stayed in the National Guard I was good. Which was my plan at the time anyway. My original major was Russian, I picked that before Arabic was suddenly in demand, the fake town we occupied in basic training still had everything labelled in Cyrillic. But now, I wanted to be that cool history teacher I mentioned from high school. I changed my major to Social Studies Education and also decided to switch to a more civilian-applicable MOS – 25U, Radio Retrans Operator. Which was also a poor choice in hindsight. I know how to load a SINCGARS with my eyes closed… if only anybody else used SINCGARS… I did get a Secret-level security clearance out of it… Not that I ever used it. But before I could go to AIT to officially reclass, I was folded back into my old artillery unit and deployed to Iraq. For real this time. Aight, this is [REDACTED] working, for the first time. First time… Swear to god all this guy does over here is sleep… and go to the gym… all the time. At this point, we had switched from the objectively awesome BDUs to the crumpled mess that are ACUs and I had long since been promoted to Specialist. Military ranks have several tiers to them, we’re going to stay focused on the Army for the sake of time. You start as a Private, then Private, then Private First Class – that one used to be second class, but nobody calls it that anymore. Then there’s Specialist, the most important rank in the Army – E4 Mafia Represent. This is the rank most people achieve at the end of their first enlistment, though hard chargers can make it further. It’s not uncommon to make Sergeant. I just hope you don’t get stuck in the horrible purgatory that is Corporal – an E4 who went to NCO school but isn’t in a leadership position. They’re basically a Sergeant that nobody listens to. Once you have three or four people in your downline, you become a Sergeant, the start of the next tier known as Non-Commissioned Officers or NCOs. All the enlisted ranks from here on up are some flavor of Sergeant, all the way up to Command Sergeant Major, the plural of which is Command Sergeants Major – just like Attorneys General. Next you have the five Warrant officer ranks, most of which are called Chief. These are officers by warrant, not commission, and they only exist in a few select technical positions. They’re different from the next tier, Junior Officers, because in order to get a commission, you need a bachelor’s degree. That’s probably one of the harder things for civilians to understand since the ranks in videos games just flow into each other. You don’t go from Sergeant to Lieutenant without first going through college or some equivalent – the one exception being battlefield commissions, which are super rare. Then you have your field officers and flag officers – your one-, two-, three-, and four-star democracy distributors. We haven’t had a five-star since 1981 and Congress has since retired the rank. We also used to have a six-star during World War 1. I would like to point out that while it’s fairly common for people to say “I was an E4,” that doesn’t really make sense since that’s a pay grade and not a rank. Though, we all know what you’re saying. I was at the end of my first enlistment and still on-the-fence about re-upping, I’m not crazy. I’m not out of my mind. Your typical enlistment lasts six years with a two-year inactive period, where you’re at home living your life, but the military can call you back if they need to. So technically, you’re in for eight. Because of the deployment, I was put on Stop-Loss, which means nobody gets to leave. As a result, I was in the Army for just over seven years. When you’re put on stop loss or called back from the Inactive Ready Reserve, you paid an extra 500 a month though, which helps takes the edge off. From what I hear Stop Loss is pretty rare these days. My unit was deployed to Southern Iraq and Kuwait, running convoy security between the Kuwaiti border and Nasiriyah, Iraq. I was assigned as a gunner – I never once did anything artillery or signal related in country. We’d spend one day going north, one day going south, and then have one day off where they’d usually come up with some sort of training or presentation to fill the time. Can’t have you relaxing or anything. Rinse and repeat that three-day cycle for an entire year. Except for a rotation on QRF, which was mind-numbingly boring. QRF is the Quick Reaction Force, you stay geared up and ready to respond to any threats – which usually meant chasing away teenagers and falconers who get too close to the wire and occasionally patrolling the vast emptiness. I only brought the camera out when route conditions were Amber or below, so if you’re expecting any action shots, you’re going to be disappointed. Somewhere out there, the opposite of this shot exists… I should look into finding that. However, I want you to pay attention to this, we are driving on MSR Tampa, which is the main interstate highway running from Basra to Baghdad. Pay attention to which direction I’m moving… notice anything weird? How about now? Yes, they would routinely drive in the opposing direction to go around us – just about every day there was an accident like this. This was 2009, at this point we were supposed to share the road with locals, but traffic laws are basically non-existent in Iraq so people did whatever they wanted. The first half of our deployment we were only running convoys at night, but then we switched to daytime, which was far more interesting. But rather than just talk to you about what I did, I thought it might be a little interesting to take a look inside this chest. This is my box of memories. Uniforms, awards, and souvenirs that I bought from my many friends who assured me they were giving me a special deal. Alright, so we’re starting off kind of silly with my ipod. I only kept it because I had it specially engraved for the deployment. A Kuwaiti flag. An Iraqi flag… with gold fringe, I guess that makes it part of the admiralty. Teddy bears from the two camps I used to travel between all the time. The usual base people go to near Nasiriyah is Tallil – I only went there once or twice. We spent most of our time at the forsaken truck stop that was Cedar II. So one of the times I went to Tallil, I asked the locals working at a restaurant if I could buy one of their shirts. They went in the back and gave me one for free instead. My PT Jacket with the Physical Fitness Badge – believe it or not, I used to score 300+ on my fitness tests. Doubt I could do that today. Soda in Iraq was made with actual sugar, not corn syrup – so much better. Alright I guess this is my LA Beast tribute… Oh gross. Well I guess that’s a good sign isn’t it? Still good. Iraqi soda. Okay I’m not that stupid. Okay I’m not that stupid either… This is a miniature T-Barrier – these were twelve-foot high concrete walls that protected the camp. Camel. More camels. A whole bunch of camels – this is bone, not ivory. I have so much camel stuff that it’s kind of disgusting, but they were literally everywhere – aside from stray dogs and sheep, they were the only animals we saw. Look! That’s a camel in the back of a Toyota! Okay, did I really need this many rank insignia, we don’t even use these anymore… Some old unit patches I traded for… All this Velcro! Okay, this is a joke stop loss tab – a bunch of us wore these in silent protest. So these coins used to be a big deal during formal events like a dining-ins. You’d go to your table and put down your best coin, then people at the table would try to one-up you. I see your basic training unit and raise you a Chief of Staff of the Army. I have no idea if that’s still a tradition. This is a seatbelt cutter! Look at that, it worked! My high intensity flashlight. Which I don’t have the special batteries for. Okay so we were supposed to keep this stuff with us at all times – I had a special pocket set aside for it. Though nobody ever checked to see if we actually had it. Some rules of engagement stuff, 9-line medivac stuff… my military driver’s license… Well this is about to get morbid. This is a Blood Chit, if I was ever detained or captured, I was supposed to give this to someone, it basically promises compensation for my safe return. Though I have a feeling nobody would accept this expired coupon anymore. It says unclassified on it, but I have a weird feeling that I’m not supposed to have this anymore... I’ll get rid of this off camera. I have a ton of pictures and videos from my deployment, most of this stuff I haven’t looked at in years. It brought back a lot of memories – some good, some bad. But this picture in particular stood out to me – I’m not going to say why, though it’s probably obvious. I feel very different about this picture today than I did when it was taken ten years ago. The person in this photo was the coolest guy in the battalion that day – people gave me high fives and told me they wished they were me. When I look at this picture now… I’m kind of disgusted. Not because of what I did, I didn’t do anything legally or morally wrong. But because of the change in attitude from then to now. During my deployment my dad sent me a bunch of books, I got a lot of reading out of the way in country. But this one in particular stuck with me. Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, is about a naval battle in the Pacific during World War 2, I’m not big into battle history But the thing that stuck with me was the attitude of the American sailors. In the heat of battle, with the enemy shooting at them and explosions happening all around them, they just kept working. Not because of some extreme devotion to duty, but because it didn’t matter what they did. They could keep doing their job or cower in the corner, if a shell was headed their way, there was nothing they could do to stop it. When we were getting ready to deploy, they had us train on American streets. You’d drive along and see a coke can or garbage bag on the side of the road and you knew you were supposed to stop and call Explosive Ordnance Disposal. If you were to do that in country, you would never get anywhere. There is trash and dead animals literally everywhere. If call EOD, you are announcing to your convoy and every convoy behind you, that you want this mission to last an extra six hours. For probably no reason. Several times, we found out after the fact that we drove by something that none of us saw. So eventually, you realize it doesn’t matter what you do. You could be hyper vigilant or asleep, the only reason it didn’t explode when you drove by was luck. That was the attitude of the guy in this picture and most of the people in my unit at the time. That’s the only way you can make it through a deployment without losing your mind – by making morbid jokes about which cars are going to blow up. I kept that attitude for several years after my deployment – I never expected to make it to 30. On a lighter note, you probably noticed that my callsign was Cottonballs – no, I’m not going to explain it. But I do want to bring up that it doesn’t work like it does in the movies. Nobody had a cool nickname. Cottonballs, Harry Potter, Wiggle. The harder you try to pick something like Maverick or Iceman, the more likely you were going to end up with something like Puddles or Moose. In fact, serving in the military has completely ruined most movies for me. I was deployed when the Hurt Locker came out – the worst military movie of all time, and yes, I’m including Windtalkers. I have no idea how this won an Oscar. Luckily another veteran already tore it apart on the now-defunct Cracked channel, I’m not sure my blood pressure could handle that. But I can’t even watch shows like Designated Survivor without some error completely breaking the immersion. This is a NAVY Seal, named Sergeant Sims, aside from the super tactical US flag on his chest, there are no sergeants in the Navy. Even my beloved Battle Los Angeles isn’t immune. Move, move to the back! Let’s go c’mon get in here, get in here. What’s your unit?! Fourtieth ID! What?! What? The 40th Infantry Division is real a National Guard unit spread across a few western states, including California. But nobody would answer that question with their division. This was my team in Iraq, there were three of us, so there was always one empty seat in the truck in case something happened. Joker 3-2, aka Dragon Dog. Which sounds cool until I tell you it’s because of the stuffed animals we had on our rhino – which is this thing sticking out from the front of the truck. It was supposed to set off any IEDs in front of the vehicle. I keep calling the Humvee a truck, because that’s what everyone called it, nobody really said Humvee. Which is actually an acronym spelled like this. Everything was a truck, this was a truck, this was a truck, and all of these are trucks. Keep it simple stupid. A squad was made up of 3-4 teams, which included one MRAP and occasionally a medic team. We ran convoys by squads. 3-4 Squads makes up a platoon and 3-4 platoons make up a company. Though in artillery, we called them batteries. 3-4 Batteries made up a battalion, 3-4 battallions makes up a brigade or regiment. Most of the army deploys by brigade or regimental combat teams, which is about 3000-4000 soldiers. A division is made up of several brigades or regiments and average around 20,000 people – there are larger units, like Corps and Armies, but those are big picture, continental structures. Answering what unit you’re in with your division is like being asked what state your from… And your answer is America. The best depiction of the modern military I’ve ever seen is the HBO series Generation Kill. Watching this is like going back to Iraq myself. I made MRE cookies, and we used to get in fights over jalapeno cheese. For years before my deployment, my unit was also a mess of new and old uniforms. And the endless quest for batteries is a story I know all too well. This flashlight doesn’t take AAs or anything normal, it uses those special camera batteries that were mysteriously never in stock. If you want to know what it was like to deploy, watch Generation Kill. Though I will say that the show cranks up the racism way more than anything I’d ever experienced. I wasn’t in a particularly liberal unit either. While American Sniper has its issues, the depiction of his life at home, including this scene in traffic and the one with his dog during the birthday party – were almost shot for shot recreations of what I experienced when I got out. We got a month left and I’m eating my first MRE. That’s your second you liar. Man, you’re right it is my second. Man, why you gotta ruin my tape? Because I was stop-lossed, I was out of the military three months after landing in the US. Coming home was the hardest part of my deployment. The Army didn’t prepare me well enough for the transition to civilian life. To their credit, they did try… you can lead a horse to water. But when you’re sitting in a classroom just a few miles from home after a year of being in the desert, you just want to go home. You aren’t listening to the talk about resources available to you. And I went right back to college life, I had a semester left to graduate with my first degree and a fast food job. Do not recommend. The sudden, dramatic shift from homecoming parades and being called a hero to people looking down on me and complaining about not getting enough olives was enough to drive me insane. I also hated all of my coworkers. Oh man, that sucks that you have to work a nine hour shift today, what happens after that? Oh you get to go home? I slowly pulled back from all of my friends and family, it felt like I had aged ten years, while they didn’t at all. Things got very dark and very, very lonely. There were several times I considered going back – not because I’m a war or adrenaline junkie or anything. But because life was so much simpler over there. I didn’t have to worry about paying bills, or what I wore, or not texting back fast enough. I obviously didn’t go back, but sometimes I wanted to. Eventually, I found my way to those resources and people bent over backwards to make sure I was okay. I owe my life to the people at the VA. It took me a long time to get over that cavalier attitude towards my own safety and actually start to care about living again. And I’m one of the lucky ones. But there are plenty of positives to talk about as well, I’d be doing a disservice if I didn’t mention those. I have no student debt. Thanks to the National Guard and the GI Bill, I earned two bachelor’s degrees for free. Well, financially free anyway. A lot of states also give veterans free hunting and fishing licenses or car registration – there’s a lot of those little things out there that they don’t tell you about and you have to figure out on your own. A good place to start is the VA, they usually know about that stuff. When I got out, OIF and OEF veterans were eligible for five years of VA healthcare, just in case anything develops. Which... A service-connected disability is the US government acknowledging that whatever issue you’re having wouldn’t have happened if not for the military. PTSD and missing limbs count, diabetes not usually. If they determine that they messed you up enough, you get a monthly disability check, and at certain level, healthcare for life. Literally everything I just said has asterisks though. Because I’m a veteran, I automatically have secret friends wherever I go. Doesn’t matter what service you were in or when. If we’re in a class together and I find out you’re a veteran, odds are, we’re instant friends. We have a shared experience despite never meeting. We could be different religions or on complete opposite ends of the political spectrum… And we’d still look out for each other. There were numerous times in this script where I said something that probably went right over your head. If there was ever one of those “spot the fake vegan” videos, but for veterans, it would be over in 30 seconds. So… who’s the blue falcon? Just the look on your face when I asked that question tells me everything I need to know. You’re the blue falcon. Thanks to the military policy of hurry up and wait, my patience is next level. 15 minute wait at the DMV? Please… Let me know when you’ve spent all day waiting at the gun range because your battalion commander thought it would be more efficient to just send all 500 people at the same time. Even though there are only 6 working lanes. Let me know when you’ve been sitting in your truck in full battle rattle for hours, waiting for… I don’t know and nobody else does either. But you can’t leave. I’m also much better at handling acute stressful situations. For obvious reasons. Stuff that would normally make people freeze or panic, I seem to deal with alright. Though it was tough going there for a while. My “do it right the first time” attitude and attention to detail have helped me in the job market. Which is more than I can say for my MOS. The military sells itself as an easy way of getting job training, and that is true for many positions, if you want to be a pilot, there’s no better way. Not so much the case for me. Field artillery doesn’t really translate well and even the things I did have weren’t applicable. For example, my military driver’s license, from earlier. I was certified on just about every wheeled vehicle the Army had up to a five-ton, with double-trailer and hazmat endorsements. Didn’t help me in the civilian world. I could haul several tons of high explosives and chemical weapons down the interstate, but not deliver oxygen tanks to the elderly because I needed a CDL. I was also a certified combat lifesaver. I spent weeks learning how to administer an IV and treat sucking chest wounds with floating ribs. But you can’t work here with a Red Cross CPR certification. If you ask me, the military needs to get better at giving you the civilian-equivalent qualification alongside your military training. You do learn things – but it doesn’t count without that piece of paper. But if you’re a veteran or even active duty service member looking for more job-training, the VA and local workforce centers have several programs available. Or you could go to skl.sh/knowingbetter13 BOOM, Artillery! Didn’t expect that transition did you – that’s called situational awareness. Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of courses taught by civilian experts in their field. I’ve been doing video editing as a hobby for decades, but switching Adobe would have been a complete Charlie foxtrot if not for this course in Premiere Pro. You might have noticed I’ve been working on my lighting and color correction recently, and thankfully, he has a course on that too. You can learn this and much more with an annual subscription costing less than $10 a month. And if you head over to skl.sh/knowingbetter13, you can get two months of unlimited access to all of Skillshare’s courses for free. You’ll also be supporting the channel when you do. As you might imagine, things got emotionally heavy during the making of this video. But I want you to know I’m okay. I viewed this anniversary as a chance to reflect and put a bow on it after so many years of bottling it up. This is a form of closure for me. Looking back, I don’t regret my service and I’m not bitter about it, there were good times and bad times, just like any job. But it did make me who I am today. This channel wouldn’t exist without every step and misstep which has led me to this point. And the military was a big part of that. Even though this was a more personal story, I hope you learned a few things and maybe think about the way you interact with veterans a differently, because now you know better. You never know man. I have a feeling, tonight is the day. Tonight is the day? Yeah. That’s why we put these in the trunk right?
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Channel: Knowing Better
Views: 402,198
Rating: 4.939527 out of 5
Keywords: knowing better, veterans day, military veteran, army veteran, memorial day, veteran's day, veteran, american, united states, jrotc, rotc, college, university, navy, army, national guard, reserves, deployment, deploy, iraq, afghanistan, kuwait, military, cadet, private, specialist, OIF, operation iraqi freedom, oef, operation enduring freedom, experience, story, personal, high school, military uniforms, convoy security, msr tampa, nasiriyah, military scholarship, army rotc, stop loss, service, branch, VA
Id: JNm0NRWTgPc
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 34min 36sec (2076 seconds)
Published: Mon Nov 11 2019
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