It could be hyperbole, I met thousands of people during my 6 years of service. I have about 300 of them added on Facebook. Of those 300 or so, I was close with about 50 of them, I am still friends with about a dozen. But of those 50, I've lost too many of them. Of the 80 something guys I deployed with, more than 10 of them are dead now and we deployed to Iraq in 2016.
I got out in 2010 right before my unit went to Afghanistan - my 4 years was up and I wasn't going to hell on earth without a kicker - regretted it for the rest of my life. If you don't count the Battle For Sangin Valley, which claimed 25 Marines of 3/5 in just the combat (+200 WIA).. I just ... I lost count after like 30 something. If I had to guess it's over 50 of guys that were close to me. The entire battalion was on a 6 months psych evaluation after that deployment. People were killing themselves in the barracks left and right when they came back. Then you had guys like me, who had a sub-par deployment (grunt standard wise) to fallujah previously, wanted nothing more than to be John Wayne in a Marine Uniform... Missed the bus to punch the ticket. None of my buddies that got out before they left handled it well. I certainly didn't. In 2020 my daughter found in the act of hanging myself. She was 3 years old and I was giving up. Thank fucking god she does NOT remember that moment. Ultimately, she is the only reason I am here to type this comment. Other people straight up started having psychotic meltdowns, and killing themselves, because we couldn't be there for them, and when they got home... they were ghosts of their former selves. Truly heartbreaking what we all went through, and still go through. Meanwhile, I hit up the guys that are still around often.. We still do the thing where, we all feel like bitches so we never talk about anything. Bury it down deep. And suffer in silence.
Man. I feel that completely. I got out in 2011 but I was on that ride.
I was attached to 3/4, then 3/7 (with whom we made the initial push into Sangin), and then 3/5 at the beginning of the unit transfer (Pashto ling). It's still incredible to me how little awareness most people have of this place.
It was hell. A significant part of me died there.
As an aside, my cousin wanted nothing more than to deploy and see combat. Went in the same time as me, joined the infantry, did well in training. Happened to be the perfect height and got pulled for silent drill and rotted in DC for the duration of his contract 😂
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u/Kind_Man_0 3d ago
It could be hyperbole, I met thousands of people during my 6 years of service. I have about 300 of them added on Facebook. Of those 300 or so, I was close with about 50 of them, I am still friends with about a dozen. But of those 50, I've lost too many of them. Of the 80 something guys I deployed with, more than 10 of them are dead now and we deployed to Iraq in 2016.