MISTAKES 4**
- David "Joe" Sanders
- 6d
- 6 min read
Bonded A Brother’s Love
Fourth in the series “Mistakes” Blog. I’m going to pick up where we left off going into Chapter 19, “We, Were An Elite Soldier”. But as I get back into it, I want to remind everyone again that the mistakes don’t come with blame.There was plenty of blame to go around, some of it was unfounded, but I didn’t care. I had to find someone to blame, this all couldn’t be Richard’s fault, he was just a boy. I think at the time of his suicide, he was the only one I didn’t blame. But the blame has ceased and has turned into a recognition of mistakes that were made.
CHAPTER 19_WE, WERE AN ELITE SOLDIER
Joe, combined with the U.S. Army and the country boys of Fayetteville, North Carolina were full of mistakes at this time. I don’t know what the towns are like around military bases now, but I do know in the early 1970s that Fayetteville was one large fight, looking for a place to happen. When we weren’t in the field after 5:00 PM, we were in the bars. I’ll never know how the officers I worked with from 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM every day never noticed the extra load I was carrying. I was literally in the bars until 2:00 AM every night, shooting pool, just like my father before me, but was always standing tall in a newly starched set of fatigues every morning at 7:00 AM. Thinking back now, this was really just like my father. I can’t remember him ever missing work, even though he also closed the bars down every night. I guess we had both learned to hide our real world from others very well.
CHAPTER 20_TURNING EIGHTEEN
The mistakes here were again easy to recognize. I had been in the military for a full year now. And I still found ways to hide what was inside of me. I know there were many times that the sergeants in my direct command had seen real tears flowing down my face. They had asked what was wrong many times and always chose to believe whatever lame excuse that came to my mind at that time. I’m thinking that to ask more indepth questions could have and would have led to answers that would have caused trouble or more effort on their part. Whose mistakes were those, mine for choosing to hide the real pain or theirs for not wanting to find out what the real problem was. That may have just been the standard protocol at the time, there was still a great chance that the war would escalate again, and they would need the all of the fighting machines that they had worked so hard to create.
CHAPTER 21_NOT EVEN TWINS ARE THIS CLOSE
For some, one of the biggest mistakes they make in life is to get a divorce. While I agree that marrying a super sweet young lady and introducing her to my own private hell was a mistake of sorts, mostly on her part for enduring it for as long as she did. I’m not going to count something that produced my first son as a mistake, even if it did end up in a divorce. Richard and I were so deeply intermingled in every way that I just couldn’t find a way to let her break that ice. I never came clean, I just turned into Mr. Hyde, literally, Doctor Jekyll was nowhere around and Mr. Hyde was often the flavor of the day. It’s weird, knowing now all of the mistakes that were made by me, I’m just not sure how the people that remember the boy that I was, missed the hell that I was carrying. It’s not an excuse, just the truth.
CHAPTER 22_JAMES
I thought there couldn’t possibly be any mistakes here. I’d like to say this chapter was about the happy times of having my first son. Unfortunately it was more about losing my first son to a divorce. I’d also like to say that my first wife made a huge mistake by leaving me, but that wouldn’t be true, she made the right chose. Her and I had already set a pattern that I could never recover from, it was 100% my fault. We were on again, off again so many times that I had gotten used to it being easy to chase her away, and Richard had gotten good at doing exactly that. Imagine having a built in excuse like him. I didn’t ever use him as excuse for the people I was dealing with, but I always used him as an excuse when it was time to justify my actions to myself.
CHAPTER 23_IT’S JUST JOE
There was a huge mistake made here. I had allowed Mr. Hyde to chase her away again. But this time as difficult as it was, I was starting to accept that as the best thing for all of us. Especially for my son, he would be safer with me out of the picture. I’m not talking about physically safer, I’m talking emotionally safer. But for me I had to start my grief all over again. For the first time in my life, my life after Richard’s death, I was all alone. It was just Joe. And Joe had to learn to live again on his own. Without Richard to lean on. The biggest mistake I made here was to believe that Joe on his own was not worth the breath it took to keep him alive. I was willing to let myself go totally down the drain without trying to stop it. I believed letting them go was better for them and that I could quickly dispose of what little life I had left without anyone knowing.
WRAPPING UP “MISTAKES”
When I first started this series on mistakes, I knew there would be plenty of them that I could elaborate on. And I knew I could hit on them one chapter after another. But when I turned the final page of Chapter 23, on the next page, I found myself looking at the picture my second wife and I took on our wedding day. While there were still a ton of mistakes being made in my life at this time, getting married to Judy was not one of them, it wasn’t for me anyway. I really feel sorry for her sometimes. She had no idea how damaged I was, but together we had two beautiful children and for me that just couldn’t be a mistake. I’m a true believer of things happen for a reason, Chapter 24 is titled “Something Very Unexpected” and seeing that picture spoke to me. Going forward with next week’s blog, I’m going to look for the good things that were happening, even though they would have been happening during an unrelenting, everlasting period of grief, anxiety and pain. The real mistakes did not end there. But the series of blog mistakes ends here.
**Reach out to me at any time.
I am not only willing, but I also look forward to taking a share of your pain. Email: David@bondedabrotherslove.com. You will get a caring same day response.
Nothing scripted.
You are not alone, and you matter.
If You’re Struggling
If you or someone you love or know is in a dark place, please know you’re not alone and there is help available. Reaching out is a sign of strength, not weakness. There are people ready to listen, ready to walk with you, and ready to help.
Immediate assistance is available:
National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
📞 988
Veterans Crisis Line
📞 1-800-273-8255 (Press 1) | 📱 Text 838255
Survivor Support / Crisis Group
🌐 https://www.crisishotline.org 📞 832-416-1177
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For more than five decades, I carried this story in silence. Silence nearly broke me, but telling it is what keeps hope alive.
Bonded: A Brother’s Love : One Bullet. A Thousand Echoes my hope is that it offers understanding, connection, and even a reason to hold on when life feels unbearable.
📖 Order your copy today and join me in breaking the silence. Together we can spread hope, honor the lost, and change the future.
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