by James Armstrong
I feel like I entered a time capsule in the later years of the last decade of the last century. My Army career started in the winter with basic combat training. I didn’t know it would be a career. But if you don’t choose a career somehow one will choose you, and I became a professional soldier.
I was scared the first time I jumped from a C-130. I was scared the last time I jumped from a C-130. Every time, but I never refused to jump. Maybe later on in life I’ll be the old guy with an 82d Airborne hat shuffling around the PX.
I was scared the first time I deployed, to Iraq. After that, deployments became routine. The scary parts became a change of pace from the long boring parts. When not deployed, every once in a while I’d visit family, and they had new music, new movies, different television shows to watch. My experience with the civilian world became like a brief surfacing of a submarine to take on fresh air before going back into the comfortable cocoon of camouflage.
At the twilight of my career, I realized that the time capsule was going to open no matter what I wanted. Everything that happened to me in here is going to stay, but I have to exit. The promotions, campaign ribbons, medals for service, skill badges…will be meaningless after I step out. I think maybe that’s why the old retired men wearing unit hats at the PX wear those unit and operation hats, to tell us still serving that “I was there once too, and it’s ok to remember who we were.” The hat is a souvenir from their time in the capsule.
I’m in the process of retiring. It’s scary. Not as scary as jumping, or deploying the first time, but there is a large sense of uncertainty. Are my skills valuable or even relevant enough to land a job? Are my savings enough to get through? There is a comforting certainty in the casual sadism of Army service, and that certainty goes away after you exit. Getting into the Army felt like an adventure, so much to do, see, and experience. Getting out of the Army feels like I’m a grocery item past its “best by” date.
But there is a community of people who left the time capsule. The ones who never entered, staying civilian and going about their lives. Other veterans who did a tour and left. And people like me who stayed too long, and need to re-learn how to be polite. Evidently being respectful with a “Sir” or “Ma’am” can get you in trouble these days for not being woke and assuming someone’s gender.
I joined a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school. It’s like Army Combatives, and the people who roll are like the people I suffered with in camouflage. The gi is like a uniform, but you can pick the color. The belt is like rank, but it’s really just a skill level reference, so maybe like Warrant Officer’s bar. It’s close enough that I’m comfortable there, even when getting choked out by someone twenty years younger than me and way more athletic. I go a couple times a week and it makes me feel better, like a support group for people who can’t be happy without some sort of challenge in their life and pain in their joints. Being a 43 year old white belt is rather liberating, in that my only real part is to keep showing up and I’m a beginner again.
What’s next? I don’t know. But I’m learning to be ok with that. Because very soon the door to the time capsule will open, and I’ll step out into the unknown. And every paratrooper has experience stepping out into the unknown ready to adapt to the situation they find on the ground, and overcome it with disciplined initiative.
Major James Armstrong enlisted in 1997 into the US Army Signal Corps and commissioned through Officer Candidate School in 2006 as an Infantry officer. In 2012 he qualified as an electronic warfare officer, and currently teaches at the Cyber and Electronic Warfare School. Along the way he married a girl he had a crush on at 17 and became a father of two boys. He deployed 4 times to the Middle East.
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