I’m 25 years old, and I’ve been struggling with coming to terms with failure since I was 19, or even younger than that. After going through a bitter home life through high school, I applied myself to join one of the many service academies in the USA. I was tall but generally weak at the time, never played sports at all in my life, but I went to the gym pretty consistently. Got the nomination, got the test scores, but unfortunately wasn’t selected. It was fine though, I thought, I could just go to college and commission later.
Long story short, I got to college in the middle of nowhere Arkansas with only 300 students, and hated every second. I ended up dropping out during the 2nd semester due to being too depressed to even go to class, to join the army. I thought it would make me tough, make me into a man… but it wasn’t so.
I scores very high on the asvab test, but my physical abilities were non existent, and the recruiter essentially lied on my physical fitness test prior to shipping just to get me out the door. I knew what the standard was, and he basically told me to lie if anyone asked any questions about it, and I agreed. I thought that it would simply be fixed at boot camp.
I sign on with a combat MOS, get shipped to Fort Sill in the summer of 2018, and I struggle with the initial PT test, failing every event including a near 10 minute mile run time. The DS tried to motivate me for sure, but eventually I had to profile as my right leg was beginning to fracture, barring me from the runs.
I got ridiculed by the DS, I got ridiculed by my platoon, but I completed every event except for that. But I was still profiled and eventually got booted when they forced another PT test in the final phase. Failed the run by 3 minutes, was kicked out, and shamed for not being “motivated enough”. MRI’s were done, multiple fractures in my leg, got chaptered out.
From then on I was completely depressed, drifting between jobs while I lived with my parents and was often scolded for being lazy. After being fired from 4 different jobs I settled down into a job throwing bags for an airline, but I knew I wasn’t happy due to what happened. I was going back to school at community college with my father’s help, and eventually graduated with an associate’s, but I knew I wasn’t really happy, and it didn’t do much in the job market.
After a couple years I decided maybe I should give it another shot. I sold a lot of my belongings to pay for a personal trainer that I saw for over a year, and I saw some real improvement with no real problems with my leg, and managed to pass the navy’s standard pt test before once again signing the dotted line in 2021.
Unfortunately my trainer, who became my friend, died by self harm only a couple weeks before I would ship out, and I missed his funeral to go to basic, promising him that I wouldn’t fail this time…
I got kicked out of the navy within 3 weeks, fractured my leg again to where I could barely walk, and they wouldn’t let me stay in the rehab unit despite my requests. I was in the separation unit for a couple of months then sent home again.
I was beside myself with grief more than before, not wanting to face anyone I knew that had anything to do with the military. I could tell they were all ashamed of me, so much that my dad decided to send me to my granddad’s for a month to get away from it all. But my granddad was a navy veteran, and I knew he was disgusted.
Eventually I came back, had a falling out with the parents due to “laziness”, and started going into manufacturing. Come 2024, and I’m a certified robotics tech, working at a successful car manufacturer after moving across the country.
No matter what sort of success I have though, I feel like I’ll never be able to get over the past failures, cause it was something I wanted so desperately but couldn’t have. Sure I get paid well now, but whenever the military is mentioned I only feel resentment, especially since nearly all of my coworkers are veterans. I always have to be careful what I say around anyone, knowing the current ridicule I face in the workplace would only get a million times worse, and so too would my feelings about the situation. Even when I see military movies, or see them in public, I just inwardly cringe to myself, downright hating veterans at times despite knowing that this is entirely my fault..
What would you do in such a situation?