Somebody pointed out to me that I said that I had suffered more injuries since being on the ranch than I had in Afghanistan but wasn't I blown up twice by IEDs, one of which was a good old EFP? Well, yeah, but I was inside vehicles both times, once in an up-armored patrol Humvee and once in an M-ATV, and it was no big deal -- for me: In the EFP incident the Humvee driver was killed and the guy sitting next to me ended up losing a lung, but all I suffered was being knocked unconscious and suffering PCS and for some years PPCS. BFD. Yeah, yeah, I lied about the PPCS to get into OCS as an SNA. Huh? What's that? Well, yeah. But what are they gonna do, haul me back into the Navy so they can kick me out?
Look, the thing is, getting blown up by IEDs was pretty routine. They trained Navy IAs at Fort Jackson how to deal with it, ride that Humvee on a giant gymbal, the good old Humvee Egress Assistance Trainer. Rollover! If you were in a vehicle, once you knew how to handle it, it was mostly just a nuisance. If you were not in a vehicle....
I have all my appendages, two arms, two legs, all my fingers and toes, all my reproductive organs and secondary sexual characteristics. I'm not in a wheel chair or bedridden. I'm not blind or deaf. I still have my jaw, my face was not burned off, I don't use a colostomy bag, no parts of my brain are missing.... I am not dead. You get the picture? I am just fine. I would be ashamed to whine.
Look, if you have PPCS, I sympathize and am not belittling your situation, especially if you have it bad. But I'm just saying that nothing that happened to me personally was a big deal. Certainly not compared to what happened to so many others.
Okay, I'll shut up now. I don't know why I've written so much about all this stuff lately. It was all a long time ago and....
