OurPath (formerly SSN) Open Forum / Reflections on Veteran's Day

**Posted by a_dads_straight_journey** November 11, 2019 8:56 am

Today is Veteran's Day here in the United States, and the day we honor the service of our Veterans, especially those who gave the greatest sacrifice, their life.

Everyone on this site has been or is going through an enormous loss. The most important relationship of our life turned out to be based on false assumptions, and in many cases, active deceit. Significant tenets of our belief system were obliterated, and we have needed to re-examine them and rebuild again. It sucks/sucked, it hurt/hurts, and a piece of the experience will probably hurt for the rest of our lives, depending on how the rest of our narrative unfolds, how our children turn out, etc.

BUT....

we still have ourselves, our lives, and most of us at least in the West, have the freedom to rebuild in spite of our culture's ignorance and silence about our pain. We owe some of that freedom to our veterans, and in honor of their sacrifice, we can take today to set our grief aside, and commit to accept, and continue on rebuilding, and appreciating that we have the freedom to do so.

All the best,

ADSJ

Last edited by a_dads_straight_journey (November 11, 2019 9:52 am)

**Posted by OutofHisCloset** November 11, 2019 10:42 am

ADSJ,
I actually date my now-ex's breakdown to the death of our nephew, in 2012, in Afghanistan. It's a never ending bitter irony to me that his reaction to our nephew's death (his sister's son) was to focus on himself and his repressed inner pain, to hide all this from me for three years, and then to drop his trans bomb in my lap, while mine was to subject to scrutiny all my previous views about the responsibilities of citizenship, how they are discharged, and by whom, to think seriously about the implications for the country of our current arrangements of an all volunteer military with the costs borne only by a few, and then to read widely so I could create a college course in the literature of the Iraq war, written by veterans, so that my own sorrow could serve a larger social purpose.

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (November 11, 2019 10:49 am)

**Posted by a_dads_straight_journey** November 11, 2019 10:52 am

I believe I am at that cross-roads now, how can this experience serve a larger purpose? I hope the opportunity becomes obvious to me.

ADSJ

**Posted by OutofHisCloset** November 11, 2019 11:14 am

I think Phoenix had a somewhat similar experience, and Kel, too, and both of them became more involved in the SSN administration.
I've gotten active on a couple of other websites, and have felt as if my experience has been helpful for others to hear. It's a delicate decision, or is for me, because of all the politics swirling around trans issues, most of them abhorrent to me--on both the left and right!
I hope you will see a way forward, even if in increments at first.