Becoming a Veteran After Choosing to Forget My Military Service at Fort Hood
For a long time, I did all I could to forget about having served in the U.S. Army.
For a long time, I did all I could to forget about having served in the U.S. Army. Although I physically survived my three-and-a-half-year-long enlistment, my mental health was, as they say, touch-and-go the whole time. The Army finally discharged me for injuries I accumulated in training, but I felt guilt-ridden that I hadn’t gone to “real” war. Every time the topic arose of my service, I hastened to add — apologetically — that I had not deployed.
I left my gloomy winter life in Berlin at the end of February 2020 for southern Texas to attend my first Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference, a huge annual event that normally draws nearly 15,000 participants. As I flew above the Atlantic, cancellations were coming in thick due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
I still felt less nervous about the virus than what awaited me in Texas.
When I shed my Army combat uniform for the last time in 2007 and drove out of Fort Hood, where I had been stationed for two years during the height of the…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Heaven and Earth Dispatches to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.