My Most Bittersweet Career Choice

I have a question: if you could put a price on your own life, what would it be? Is there a certain amount of money, or is there something else that you would value your life at? I believe the closer you've come to death, the more that value decreases.. at least, while you're mentally trying to cope with it. Once you have recovered, you value your life much higher because you know how close you've been to losing it. Everything is felt more intensely, and you are grateful to have what you do, because you know it could all be gone in an instant. We all know that life could be gone in an instant, but knowing that, and being in the moment where it could've happened, are two completely different feelings. There's this weird trend within combat veterans. I've read about this, and several of my buddies were the same for years after.. but once you leave the military, and you've been in combat in a foreign country, you feel tied to that place, and it feels 'safer' to be there, than it does to be home. For some reason, I didn't think this was going to be emotional -until I hit that line.

Maybe it's because I lost part of myself there, but I lost a close friend, and several people I knew from my unit on top of that. Yet, life felt so much easier, I wasn't watching my own behavior at the time, but now I can look back and see the timeline.. I deployed at my first unit, came back and chose a unit that was deploying before my contract expired, I deployed with that unit after being in the States for about a year in between. For reference, I signed for 4 years, and nearly 2 years of that was deployments. That is nothing compared to Iraq, by the way. Sometimes time spent in country on a single tour, was nearly 2 years. I hope they've taken care of their mental health, because I can only imagine how difficult that was to deal with. Okay, minor diversion, but back to this trend. I deployed, changed units, deployed again, separated from the military, and this is where we pick up with what I wanted to write about.. I went back to the middle-east multiple times before I closed that chapter of my life.. I started private security contracting, and it couldn't have come at a better time in my life. I had just moved back home, which kinda sucked after having lived in the barracks, and then having my own apartment, but I was incredibly grateful to my mom, and her allowing me to stay with her during this time.

I was home, but it wasn't "home" to me. I didn't feel tied to anywhere, I had Lacey, and she was probably the biggest tie I had to anywhere at the time.. but I didn't feel any reason to stay anywhere, and even though I was working and going to school, I didn't feel like I was doing anything, or going anywhere. I just felt like I was drifting and had no idea what I wanted to do. No long-term goals, just kind of numb to wanting to think about life. One of the guys from the military, that I will always regard as one of my closest friends, regardless of how much contact we have, randomly called me to ask how I was doing. That conversation led to me telling him exactly that, I felt like I was stuck doing nothing, and he told me that he had just finished training for a security contracting job, and he started telling me that I could get into it too. My eyes were probably wide as fuck when I heard that one.. He told me that he'd give me all the info I needed, and help me get through the process, all I'd need to do is some paperwork and then pass the training.

I've talked about my ADHD at times, it's not debilitating, and at this point in my life, I didn't know I had it.. but a common behavior that comes with that is hyper-focus. Essentially, when you focus all your efforts towards a single thing and block out a lot of other distraction, or other things in your life.. I finished that paperwork the next day and was applying to the company immediately. The job was going to be overseas, I didn't really care about the location or the money, I just knew it was something that would change up the monotony of my life. When the recruiter called me to offer me a training slot, I realized there were a ton of reasons I wanted to do it.. it would open so many opportunities for my future, both financially and with this on my resume. It was more money than I thought I'd make in my life, especially at 23. It was over six figures, and for me to not have a degree, and really only have military experience.. I felt like this was the only chance I'd ever have at something like this. By the way, at least the American education system teaches you this, but you don't need a degree to make a lot of money in this world, or even to make a livable wage. It's not true, you dig yourself a hole financially just going to school to get that degree, the schooling and the piece of paper are nice.. but you don't need that. You can go about it however you want to, but don't ever think you need a degree to do something. That paper doesn't measure competency, and I have met some mighty, damn, incompetent people with degrees. But.. I would like medical professionals to go to school haha, that might be the one thing that really requires schooling.