I worked as a transplant coordinator, and that job was soul crushing every day.
One of the worst moments was being on the intake phones. It a phone number every hospital in the area calls whenever anyone dies. They report the details of the death, and we determine if there’s any possibility for donation.
I knew my uncle had been sick, but nobody told me they put him in hospice care and had withdrawn treatment. I took hundreds of calls, maybe thousands, but I still remember the feel of the receiver in my hand when the voice on the line said his name.
There were many sad stories, many sad days, so much that you become numb to it. It was horrible, but it made my job easier because when the numbness sets in, you can think of the trauma and empathize.
Realizing that all of the patriotic stuff I was fed as a child was bullshit, and realizing what I had actually become a part of by joining the US Army.
Me and my brother both joined the army at slightly different times. We both did a tour in Afghanistan that overlapped and were just one province away from each other. I did a second tour over there and he got out.
We both came from a VERY conservative family. It was after serving that we both became suuuuper liberal. It was like the wool being pulled out from out eyes when we joined the army and saw how much of a lie it all was. Oddly enough, this is a semi common story for conservative people joining the military.
We grew up with our dad working in the military-industrial-complex and he would make fun of the liberals who called out the military for serving the MIC companies, and how it Iraq was a war for profit. Then we serve and see it first had with all the contractors, the needless equipment, the contracts for new tech that wasn’t needed, and all the other money sinks going into it. It was all a lie.
We grew up being told how bad universal healthcare would be, but then had it in the military and saw how amazing it was.
We were told that if people didn’t have a personal motivation through debt and loans to make them work harder, then people going through college would have no motivation to improve their lives. And yet here I am with the GI bill. (Granted, I still have 70k in student loans. The GI bill is kind of a lie in its self).
Everything that was a conservative talking point was exposed as a lie after joining army.
Everything that was a conservative talking point was exposed as a lie after joining army.
I have definitely gotten more leftwing as I have aged. My family was the same militant Christianity. Nothing as impressive as what you did, more of just seeing the ideas I was taught not working.
Something one of my exes said to me that id rather not think about let alone repeat. Break ups can bring out an evil darkness in people that you didn’t know was there.
I fully admit, I thought a crushing trump defeat and a dual chamber Clinton victory would finally force the Republican party back to sanity.
Back in those days, I dunno, I didn’t exactly think we’d solve problems like climate change or sweatshops but they weren’t beyond all possibility.
My youngest daughter dying.
