It all started with unit PT.
Winter in the Midwest is cold. It can also be snowy, windy and icy. What we would do when the weather outside was frightful was go into the gym built into our facility and play unit basketball. If everyone was there, then we would play 5 on 5, with subs, and full court. I happened to dive for a loose ball, and rolled my ankle in the process. I got up, walked off the court, and told my 1stSgt that I was going to sit it out for a few minutes, and see how it went.
An hour later after PT was over, I needed help walking down the stairs to the locker rooms to shower. By the end of the day, I was borrowing the only set of crutches our unit corpsman had, in order to walk out to my truck and drive home. Luckily for me, I had an automatic truck at the time, and not a stick-shift. My left ankle was trashed.
I went in a day or two later, had it xrayed, and was told it was just a high sprain. It still didn’t get better. When I walked on uneven ground, it felt like hot metal was burning through the outside of my ankle. Running? Not a chance. I finally got approval to get an MRI, where it was discovered I had two torn ligaments in my left ankle. For those of you who know and care, it was the calcaneofibular and talofibular ligaments I tore. Both are on the outside of the ankle.
Fast forward several months, and I finally had surgery to fix it. Problem was, I felt afterwards that there was an issue, because as I would try and walk or run, it felt like my foot was hitting my leg bone. Extremely painful. To make matters worse, I developed a partial width, full thickness tear in my right quad tendon that was a result of overcompensating with my right leg. I was a hot mess.
Moving On
Despite all that, I managed to get orders out of I&I, to my next duty station in Camp Lejeune, NC. I was excited. I finally had orders to an infantry battalion. 3/2, the Betio Bastards. I had worked with them on my last deployment to Iraq, and I was excited about the prospect of deploying again.
They were spinning up for a deployment as I checked in. It was long nights, exhausting days, 6 sometimes seven days a week, working 18 or more hours a day. I was ready for it. I could taste the combat deployment again. I was getting ready to go home. Go where I was comfortable.
It never happened. My ankle even after two more surgeries never fully healed. My right knee wasn’t diagnosed until well after I left the service. I was traded out for another SSgt, and sent to 8th Comm Battalion. I have always said, I and I always will stand by the fact that I believe Comm Battalions are where Marines go to die.
Despite this, I did the best I could to make the mission and take care of the Marines in my charge. When my med board finally went through in October of 2013, I was told it could take up to 6 months for the results to come back. 30 days later, in the end of November 2013, I had an EAS date of January 30th, 2014. I had 30 days to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. The Marine Corps had been my life for the past 14 years. I now had a career to find, a career to leave, and a family to take care of. And I had 30 days to do it all.
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