I see you.
Not the version you present to the world — squared away, mission-ready, fine.
I see the one underneath. The one who served faithfully and came home carrying things
no one gave you a briefing for. The one who wore the uniform with pride and then stood
in the mirror one day wondering who you were without it.
I know what it is to have wounds that don't show on an x-ray. To carry moral injury
like a ruck you can never set down. To have experienced things in service that stole
something from you — your sense of safety, your trust, your sense of self — and to
have been expected to simply carry on.
I know what it is to come home and feel more lost than you ever did downrange.
You are not broken. You are bearing weight that was never meant to be carried alone.
And there is a God who sees every invisible wound, every sleepless night, every moment
you held it together for everyone else while falling apart on the inside.
This page — this space — is for you. Not a clinical assessment. Not a checkbox.
A welcome. From one woman who served, to another who needs to know:
you are allowed to heal. You are allowed to rise.
And you do not have to do it alone.
Semper Fidelis — Always Faithful. That is not just a Marine motto.
It is the character of the God who has never left your side.
