A distant family member of mine was (is) a Marine, and made it to Drill Instructor before the effects of his PTSD from 3 tours and a TBI became too much (ie he basically had a psychotic break) and he medically retired.
After he got out, he and I talked about it one time. He told me that he’d had a lot of trauma growing up and was fairly bigoted when he first went in. But that he couldn’t care less about someone’s sex, gender, race, religion, etc (at least as far as the people who had joined; he admits civilians are still a tough thing for him), because when you’re in the suck, none of that matters. The only thing he cared about is whether the person next to him was properly trained and willing to put their life on the line for him, just like he would for them.
A distant family member of mine was (is) a Marine, and made it to Drill Instructor before the effects of his PTSD from 3 tours and a TBI became too much (ie he basically had a psychotic break) and he medically retired.
After he got out, he and I talked about it one time. He told me that he’d had a lot of trauma growing up and was fairly bigoted when he first went in. But that he couldn’t care less about someone’s sex, gender, race, religion, etc (at least as far as the people who had joined; he admits civilians are still a tough thing for him), because when you’re in the suck, none of that matters. The only thing he cared about is whether the person next to him was properly trained and willing to put their life on the line for him, just like he would for them.