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I think one of the saddest parts of a Serviceman getting
out of the Service is they don't take any orders anymore.
People might not realize this, but military people have been
conditioned to take orders.
It is almost like when you get your discharge papers you are
even asking the last time, are there any orders?
It's amazing, because it didn't really hit me to any
significant degree until I got out, that here I had these
military discharge papers, honorable discharge, given a
address to where the VA services were, and to go on my
own, find out if I need to check in.
But nobody was telling me anything to do.
And that was probably one of the most depressive
periods in my life.
I think a lot of soldiers might not ever admit that as
honestly as they need to, but we look for more orders.
So there I was was coming home, and at this time my
grandmother, who had had experience with my father who
was in the Army, who was a Korea Veteran, who had had
problems in the Service and they didn't even have those
kinds of support bases.
And she took care of my father, got him stabilized,
and made sure he understood that the support base was at
the family first.
And I think she saw it in me.
Because my mother, again, had had a relapse.
She was ill.
So my depression was growing on me, to the point where I
probably would have gone back to the drugs.
I probably would have gone back to the streets, so to
speak, was where I came from.
And at that point my grandmother, one Wednesday,
with a cane, she was 81 one at the time, took me to the local
church around the corner, where I came up as a child.
I hadn't been there in years.
And they had a Wednesday night bible study.
She sat me down, she said, I want you to stay here.
And I thought we were just going to stay there because
she gave me an order.
And a soldier is listed for orders.
And when she said, stay here, I sat there.
Then she said, my knee's hurting, and I'm going to go
back to the house.
I got ready to leave, she said, stay there.
And when she said stay there I looked kind of puzzled, but I
was still following orders.
That was one of the best orders that I ever followed,
because what happened was she recognized I needed to be in
some kind of group of discussion.