A New Beginning

Life wasn’t always so picture-perfect for this Army veteran.

- Josh Marino

‘‘HERE, BOY!” I called out again. I walked down the cement steps behind the Army barracks and listened, hoping to hear an answering meow or to see a flash of black and white streaking toward me. But there was still no sign of the cat. Now I was starting to panic. While I had yet to name him, I had been feeding him for months. Seeing him had become the highlight of my day.

I could clearly remember when we first met. Sitting on these same cold cement steps that night, I’d been staring out into the darkness. Rain soaked through my pants, but I didn’t care. The only light came from the glow of my cigarette—my last. Back in my room there was a knife on the bedside table and a suicide note on my computer screen. I hoped that whoever read it first would understand why I had done what I planned to do.

Six months before that night, my unit had been deployed to the southwest of Baghdad. During an attack, a mortar had exploded 10 feet away from me, leaving me with a traumatic brain injury, a case of PTSD and a one-way ticket home. Since then, I had been living on base in Fort Riley, Kansas, but I wasn’t readjusting well. I was paralyzed by anxiety and struggling to get through each day. Mostly I was tired. I sat there on those cold cement steps just wanting to end it all. Tonight I will, I thought as I took another drag of my cigarette.

“Meow?”