When I was on this deployment, the thought never crossed my mind that I should write about the deployment itself.

I remember daydreaming about writing a fiction story when I got back but not anything related to this deployment.

During a deployment you tend to live day by day. We would rarely plan anything more than a week out. Even major operations would come together out of the blue it seemed. We were basically on call most of the time.

The point is, for years after this deployment I never thought there was a coherent story there. I didn’t think any of the individual stories had enough substance to justify more than a diary entry.  It wasn’t until several years after I retired, I realized I was telling these same stories over and over.  Even then I never thought to put them together because it didn’t seem there was enough there.

Ajax Trueblood finished his book Bastards and Brothers; it took him years and he actually worked on it most of the time. I admittedly cried when I read the parts that I was there for. It’s a great book. It helped me realize that these stories deserve to be told.

Tiger 5 both inspired me and terrified me. The thought of writing about my experience firsthand was enticing but also scary. I had no idea what drudging up these memories would be like. I was terrified of most of them. It turns out I was right, it was not all therapeutic. It was exhausting.

One day I simply wrote a list of all the stories I could remember from Iraq and the list kept growing and growing. Then I thought about how to tie them together and couldn’t really figure that out either. It wasn’t putting them together; it was trying to tie them together that was difficult.

I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was traveling for work and seeing all these novels in the airport bookstores that had a tenth of the stories that this one deployment had. On top of that, I would pick one up and read from the middle. Every one of them was boring. There was too much dialog or too much explaining.

Oh yeah, I read Jocko Willink’s book. That dude went on like 3 patrols and is a national hero. That pissed me off. I thought about every Marine grunt and Army Ranger that did like 3 deployments a year. Those fuckers didn’t get a book. They deserve more recognition that the dudes that go to BUDS, graduate and start writing how awesome they are. 

The funniest part is the stories that are in Jocko’s book are not great. They always get left with no plan and every raid they go on was either not planned or mismanaged.

The Navy Seals I’ve worked with couldn’t lead themselves out of a wet paper bag. They knew squad tactics at best. You know who the Seal’s biggest fans are? Yup, other Seals.

Don’t get me wrong, Seals can conduct a raid, but that’s about it. Hands down, Army Rangers outshine those dudes.

At least Army Rangers can conduct a decent size operation like airfield seizure. I’d take Rangers over Seals any day. Honestly, I don’t think Army Rangers get even a fraction of the credit they deserve. Those guys are fucking animals, and super smart. Marines are just animals.

Most folks haven’t even met real Rangers. Real Rangers are the ones who serve with Ranger Regiment. They’re called long-tabbers. This is because they wear the Ranger Regiment tab above the Ranger tab.

Real Rangers are the dudes that look like they’re in training camp for the NFL and take over the gym at 6 in morning. Those dudes are legit…

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Sorry, back to my original thought.

At some point it dawned on me. It’s not about the story, it’s the experience.

“What about the physiology?” Shit, that’s what really affected me long term. It wasn’t the memories, it was the physiological echoes I would feel, smell, or hear.

Screw it. I just started writing.

And kept writing.

Then I started to like what was coming together more and more.

Of course, I stalled out a couple of times. I’m great at starting projects. Finishing them is a completely different story. No pun intended.

I told a retired Marine at work that I was dabbling in writing a book.  He said, unequivocally, do it now.

Ultimately, the idea of sharing my authentic experiences with my coworkers was what helped push me to the finish line.