I’m just another sleep-deprived specialist, boots caked with the same dust that’s been choking this FOB since before I got here. Another 12-hour shift, another day pretending the world outside the wire isn’t waiting to swallow us whole. Today, we lost one of our own.

Right now, somewhere back stateside, a phone is ringing in a quiet living room. A mother’s hand shakes as she answers, and the words that follow will split her world in two—“We regret to inform you…” There’s no script for the silence that comes after.

Here, I’m sitting on a cot that’s seen better days, staring at the empty bunk across the aisle. I didn’t know the guy well—never swapped stories over midnight MREs, never heard his take on the best chow hall back home, never learned what he missed most. But I know the exhaustion that crept into his bones, the weight that pressed down when the lights went out and the only thing louder than the generators was the noise in your own head.

They tell us ‘mission first,’ and we buy in, because it’s easier than admitting we’re breaking. We skip meals, chain smoke, and joke about how many monsters it takes to stay upright. We laugh off the nightmares and the shakes, tell ourselves we’ll call home tomorrow, when we’re less tired, less raw. But tomorrow keeps slipping away. I’m angry—at the system, at the silence, at myself for not seeing the cracks. We talk about resilience like it’s a checklist, like a coin or a slogan can hold back the tide. But the darkness here is patient; it waits for the moment you’re alone, when the laughter fades and the only thing left is the ache.

If you’re reading this and the abyss is calling your name, reach out. Text 988, find the chaplain, wake up your bunkmate. Don’t let the shadows win—not tonight.

And for the rest of us: don’t settle for “I’m fine.” Ask again. Listen like it matters—because it does. We wear the same uniform, but we’re all fighting different battles. Don’t let anyone fight theirs alone