Twenty Years

Twenty years since the second time

I packed my life into a rucksack

and taught my heart how to beat quieter.

The first war took my innocence—

That was easy, almost expected.

The second was greedier.

It took my sense of after.

I remember thinking I already knew fear,

already knew the sound of distance screaming,

already knew how sleep could betray you.

I was wrong.

There are lessons that only repeat themselves

to make sure they stay.

Twenty years later

The calendar insists it has been generous.

It points to marriages, jobs, birthdays,

to mornings that smell like coffee instead of dust.

It says, look how far you’ve come.

But time is polite, not honest.

It doesn’t mention the way a sudden noise

still grabs the spine.

How certain silences feel armed.

How the body remembers orders

the mind has long forgotten.

I went back a second time

not because I was brave,

but because something unfinished

was calling my name.

War is good at that—

it never explains what it wants,

only that you should come now.

Twenty years later

I carry fewer weapons

and more ghosts.

They are lighter, somehow,

but harder to put down.

I have learned this much:

Survival is not a victory parade.

It is a long, quiet walk

where some days you limp

and some days you don’t.

Where courage looks less like charging the hill

and more like taking another breath

If you ask what the second war gave me,

I’ll say this—

a deeper respect for mornings,

an intolerance for bullshit,

and a tenderness I never expected

for anyone still standing.

Twenty years on,

I am still here.

Not unmarked.

Not finished.

But breathing.

And that,

after the second time,

still feels like something worth honoring.

In memory of all those 1st AD Soldiers that didn't make it back home.