Dead Stop

You get to the point where you're just empty. Empty of feelings and thoughts. Of bone and flesh and blood. Empty of hope and despair. You aren't dead. But you aren't living, either.

Kids. I lowered my phone. Closed my eyes. Planted my feet and started the slow breathing my VA counselor had taught me. One... I'd been doing well. Exercising. Eating healthy. Two... maybe drinking too much. Okay, definitely drinking too much. But... three... nothing worse. Not even cigarettes. Going to every brutal therapy session and doing as I was told... four... with the faith that eventually it would make things better instead of worse. Five. I opened my eyes. “We're still good,” I whispered. Say it till it’s true.

I'd been raised on excuses. But the Marine Corps taught me that excuses don't matter. That excuses--even when prettied up as reasons--are just a way to avoid doing what needs doing.

We all have our price. If we're lucky, we never learn what it is.

Home is where you stand on the front porch and wonder which would be worse. To go inside. Or to walk away.

Guilt is a useless emotion. It cuts you off at the knees and offers

Every person’s life is a struggle against a world filled with resistance. That resistance may defeat us or warp us or crush us. But sometimes, we find a strength we didn’t know we had. And with that newly recognized strength, we move past the hard times. And we become a little stronger for the next round.

Survival is a short-term strategy. Don’t confuse it with living. Life isn’t about whether you live or die. Because we’re all gonna die—not a damn thing any of us can do about that.” “Right,” I snapped. “The war didn’t help me figure that out.” “Rather,” he went on, “life is about the grace. About making sure that while you are alive, you’re living for something bigger than yourself.

Love is like falling off a cliff. It’s good for a moment, but it never ends well.

And I ran hard into a truth I’d known since Iraq. You could throw everything you had at a problem—firepower, manpower, logistical support. You could get a lot of really smart people working on it. You could even get a lot of people to sacrifice their lives for it. And, in the end, might be all you’ve got is the same problem and a higher body count. Forget saving the world. Sometimes you can’t even save one small child.

You could throw everything you had at a problem—firepower, manpower, logistical support. You could get a lot of really smart people working on it. You could even get a lot of people to sacrifice their lives for it. And, in the end, might be all you’ve got is the same problem and a higher body count.

Those who are the least guilty are the ones who feel most at fault.

He rolled his eyes at me. “Fuck that. You go without me, I’ll just follow you.” “You’re more Marine than a Marine.” “I’m one better. I’m a redneck.

Don’t think of me as a role model. Think of me as someone who’s made mistakes so you don’t have to.

Photographs, like ghosts, are the persistence of memory. Over time, people fade from our recollection, or change. Their faces become kinder or more cruel, their hair less gray or more so. But photographs carry the truth, if only one small piece of it.

Scientists say that when we recall something from our past, it isn’t as simple as taking out a photograph from an album. Because it isn’t the original memory we pull up. Rather, it’s a slightly different version of that memory—a memory of a memory. With each retrieval, the memory is altered.

sometimes your best self was your worst self. That sometimes you couldn’t separate the two. My lieutenant had told me that Marines were often called upon to do the unconscionable, and that it was all right, because ultimately the ends justified the means.

We’ve all been at least a little broken by the world. But the world only notices when we try to hurt it back.

But don’t be afraid. It’s just God rearranging the clouds.

motes of dust had begun drifting back to earth like startled birds returning to roost. In the thinning haze, law enforcement continued to arrive in a cacophony of noise. Flashing lights, blaring horns, the wail of sirens and the screech of tires. Doors and trunks opened, then slammed shut. Feet pounded, men shouted, radios squalled like abandoned children. All