Just Another Cancer Story

I’ve never been a big fan of shooting weapons, blowing things up, and jumping out of planes but I surely felt the pull of my nation on 11 Sept 2001. I enlisted six months after that awful day. It was May of 2002 when I officially entered service. I was a single, twenty six year old college grad without a real and proper clue of how or why the world worked. By the end of my five year term in the military, I had become a confident man who had married my high school sweetheart and we’d been blessed enough to have a healthy and beautiful two year old boy, Alexander.

When I think about it, I’m not really sure how many lives I used up becoming a Green Beret in the US Army Special Forces or while training as a member of a SFODA which stands for Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (a 12 man US Army Special Forces team), or while being deployed on an ODA in a war zone. My guess is, though, I’d reached my max.

I’d tested my mettle and learned mountains of information. I’d challenged myself to what I thought was the maximum I could endure. Little did I know, that all this training would serve me well when my life’s biggest challenge would arrive 5 years later.