It all started when I had returned from my first deployment to Afghanistan.
Nothing bad had happened to me or anyone I knew while I was there, but knowing you could be blown up or shot dead without warning, at any moment had an effect on me, I didn’t realize it until I got home.
Basically, the little voice in my head that told me I shouldn’t do things to allow myself to have fun because of some moral abstract had turned off. I guess the thought was, I could have died at any moment, and there were a lot of things I had denied myself… I guess I no longer wanted to deny myself!
I was 38 years old and married with children. Life at home and life in the bedroom was very “vanilla.” Nothing to complain about, but nothing to write about either.
I had duty at the barracks on base, basically a senior person needed to be present to keep an eye on things in case something happened. They gave you a room to stay in overnight, and the next day it was someone else’s turn.