Man I feel your pain. I saw some things myself in JR ROTC. Things you can't unsee. We were deep in the woods behind the concession stands and the girl next to me took a honey bee sting right on her hand.
She went down, hard. In a heap of tears we carried her for 3ft to the cart we had ridden there in to keep from getting blisters from marching.
The next thing you know we were surrounded. 20 cross country boys had heard my squealing from the boots rubbing my ankle. These 105lb pimply boys were on a mission to put me down. My partner was the closest they had been to a girl in their lives, but we made it.
When we made it to the nurse's office I can relate to the embarrassment. When she announced out loud that my mom wouldn't come early to get me I could have crawled in a hole.
Honestly, guys like me set back and make jokes and really just take things for granted when guys like you have given us this life. I sincerely thank you all who have served and put us all in a position to just sit back and have a good time. Humor is my way of coping. Hopefully, just a little smile from my nonsense raised the mood for a second.
One thing I learned from my own struggles is that people will never ask for help. I realized that I would always say, if you need anything let me know, but as a person in need, there last thing I wanted was people thinking I couldn't do something for myself.
I realized from being a bad patient myself that I can't put the burden of asking for help on someone who is already down. I just do the things that need to be done for people now without really waiting for the ask. To have you on here talking to us puts you light-years ahead of where I was. Good for you.
Chin up and thank you for everything you've done.