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JAK. A short marriage early in my military career didn’t prohibit me from trusting women, but it had prevented me from actively pursuing them afterward. Due to long periods of time away from home during deployments, to be a wife of a Navy SEAL was difficult and required an extremely independent woman. Although I believed her to be capable of loyalty during my time away, I was incorrect.
A surprise visit to the United States ended up being just that. A big surprise. Her repeated attempts to lure me away from the home as soon as I had arrived raised doubt, but the breathing I heard from our bedroom was the dead giveaway. After pulling him from the closet and beating him senseless, I left. Feeling foolish for having made the decision to allow myself to feel emotion in the first place, I promptly filed for a divorce. Incapable of devoting one hundred percent mentally and emotionally to the SEAL missions which immediately followed convinced me a Navy SEAL had no business in any form of relationship or feeling any degree of attachment to a woman whatsoever.
I should have listened when they warned me.
If your SEAL Team wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one.
With the military now behind me and feeling as if my emotional nerve endings were exposed to Karter, I could see no real risk. If things between us did not work out, I only subjected myself to harm. Proceeding along this path with her did not place the military, my teammates, or the mission at risk - only me. My emotional progress was instrumental to my success as a civilian. Beginning my new life in a different city and including a woman and the associated emotions would be typical. Naturally, we migrate toward members of the opposite sex. Seeking what we are unable to achieve alone, we hope for compassion, understanding, loyalty, and love.
I found it to be extremely rewarding being in Karter’s presence. Something about her allowed me to immediately become relaxed. I felt comfortable with her. I was warned in my briefing prior to retirement I may feel depressed and uneasy, and to seek mental health at the Veteran’s Administration if necessary. With Karter, my feeling was the exact opposite. I felt different than I had ever felt in the presence of anyone. In actuality, she scared me.
Graduating high school and immediately spending more than twenty years in the military left me no time to live a common life or deal with typical emotions. To become effective in combat, a SEAL must be able to turn off emotional attachments. Therefore, I had zero experience in feeling emotion and acting upon it. My entire military career was spent without sentiment. I had been a stone-faced killer for almost two decades. To think a person could change from being a trained killer on Friday to compassionate civilian on Monday would be ludicrous.
Based on my lack of experience on allowing myself to feel or act upon emotions, I now felt as if I was now a thirty-eight-year-old high school kid. I couldn’t decide if Karter was filling a void as an individual or by the mere design of simply being a woman. Would I have been attracted to any woman who exposed herself to me, or was Karter truly special? Finding the answer on an absolute level would be impossible. I knew one thing for certain; Karter caused me to feel emotion. As I stood beside the running track at a local high school, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t the three miles I had run which had me breathless.
It was Karter’s absence.
I didn’t want to see her.
I felt I needed to.
Not necessarily feeling uneasy, but feeling differently than I was accustomed to, I recalled my discussion with Commander Warrenson on my last day in the Navy.
“For the last twenty years, you’ve been told what to do - when to eat, what to eat, where to go and where not to go. You’ve lived your respective life against the clock; one split-second separates life from death on a mission. You’re no longer on a mission. Kennedy. My best advice is this; enjoy doing whatever you want whenever you want. Open up emotionally, and allow yourself to feel. You’re going to be free when you leave here, and you’ve paid a high price for it. Enjoy it.”
Instinctively I glanced at my watch.
He shook his head and did his best to smile.
“Here in about two minutes, you’ll no longer be Kennedy. You’ll leave here as Jak,” he looked up at the clock on the wall.
As the minute hand snapped into position, he smiled, “Lose your watch and enjoy life, Jak.”
I stretched my legs and began walking to the small maintenance building between the track and the school. As soon as I arrived in town, I looked for a private place to run. The new high school north of the city seemed a logical place, as it was somewhat secluded and school was out for the summer. In my initial survey of the facility, an elderly maintenance man approached me on a golf cart. Although his black skin made it difficult at first, my attentive nature allowed me to notice the outline of a tattoo on his forearm - an eagle, globe, and anchor. He was a former Marine, and in a sense, a military brother. Without reservation, he gave me permission to run on the track for the summer months during the school’s recess from classes. Generations separated us, but we would always have the common bond of war and the recovery associated with attempting to become human again. As I walked around the corner of the building, I noticed the door to the building was open. Before I stepped into the opening, his voice echoed through the small concrete facility.
“How many miles this morning, Jak?”
I stepped remaining distance to the doorway and walked inside, “Your old ears work well, Oscar. I ran three. I couldn’t stay focused, so I stopped. How’s your day progressing?”
He turned from the work bench, revealing a disassembled pump on the table in front of him, “We’re gonna get off to a fucked up start young man, you keep calling me old. And I couldn’t be any better unless I was twins. What’s on your mind?”
Oscar was somewhere close to seventy years old, bald, and still resembled the Marine he once was. Marines claim once they’re a Marine they’re always a Marine, and Oscar was certainly no exception. He seemed to be in great health, and appeared to be very physically fit. Short of his own admittance of his age and the grey goatee beard he wore, I would have never guessed him to be seventy years old.
I grinned and responded, “I’ve got one quick question, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
He walked to the golf cart and sat on the edge of the fender, “I know you ain’t a dumb man Jak, so I’m gonna go on and just guess you’s blind. I ain’t got no hair. What’s ailin’ ya?”
“When you got back, how long was it before you were in a relationship?”
He looked up at the ceiling as if recalling past memories and smiled. As he leaned away from the golf cart and slowly walked my direction, he began to chuckle, “Hell Jak, I was married when I left for Viet Nam. I had a young ‘un. I was twenty-eight when I got shot in 1969. And when I got back I went home and tried to act like nothin’ happened. Now what’s really ailin’ ya?”
“I met a girl,” I sighed.
“I sure don’t see that as a problem. Sounds like the man upstairs might be lookin’ after ya,” he grinned and pointed his index finger in the air.
I nodded my head, “Thanks Oscar. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
