I will tell you that there are not many people in this world that intimidate me or that I am scared of, I have lived through multiple mortar attacks and actually slept through one. I have been in may share of confrontations in bars and on the street. I have spent 28 months in a combat zone and traveled all around Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar. I have spent multiple birthdays, Christmas's, Easters and other various holidays away from home for the USA. I have missed many anniversaries and other family events. I have left my wife and other children to go overseas time and again. But the hardest thing I ever did was to leave my 6 years old at school to go back to a stateside mobilization. I think that I am pretty hardened and probably not in a good way, but when I was leaving that school and I heard those footsteps behind me and turned and saw a 6 year old running to me with tears in his eyes because he realized that I was leaving again, he brought me to my knees with tears in my eyes. Without a doubt that was the hardest thing that I have ever done. I know that it will happen again in the future, because my career is not over, but that was the hardest thing so far in my life.
I just had to share that. Not sure why but I had to.
