Andy Stumpf

Like I'm doing this because you will be better off without me.

And again, irrational decision is their only rational option.

I don't, I don't know.

I do know that statistically it's way higher in the occupation that I came from.

What I didn't realize and what I've started talking with a lot more about guys I served with is their time before the military though.

The trauma in the military can certainly be unique, but I tell you what, the number of guys that I've talked to now that I didn't have these conversations with when I was in, they brought a full sea bag of trauma with them before.

And if you layer that on top of everything that happens while you're in and you don't get a handle on that,

it's gonna get a handle on you.

And I think that's played itself out many times.

A lot of the emphasis is on just the military aspect.

And I'm not saying that everybody from the military world came in with the broken, shattered, fill in the blank bucket of trauma.

But there's a lot of them, the more that you dig into this, and that has to be addressed as well too.

And it makes sense.

If you had a jacked up childhood or you were bullied, what better job than to be able to dispatch bullies or those that are preying upon others?

Yeah, that's exactly what you're gonna wanna do.

But that doesn't mean that the little suitcase you brought with you

isn't gonna meet you on the tail end of that journey.

Then you pair that with isolation.

A lot of times guys get out, they'll move back to where they came from.

So away from their social circle, the uniform goes up in the closet, identity and purpose struggle that we all have when you go from that occupation, social isolation, maybe they bring with them some unhealthy social habits, alcohol, whatever else it may be with them, with that isolation, with those struggles, with that baggage.