Oh Brian! by Brian Hardie (freda ebook reader .txt) 📕

On my 24th birthday I was greatly depressed. My mom asked me what was wrong and I said, “A quarter century wasted, I haven’t accomplished a thing.” She thought about it and said, “Wait a minute, you’re only 24. I felt better, but I should have realized how messed up my life was when I thought I was 25 when I was 24.

I was working out of town a lot. I met my new girlfriend who would become my wife in a small town of Port Charlotte, Florida. Our relationship was good, but rocky. A lack of real commitment on either of our parts would take its toll on the marriage. We had two boys, Brian Jr. and Justin Dale. Two of the best boys anyone could ask for. They certainly didn’t deserve a dad with a lack of commitment to anything but selfishness. The greatest regrets in my life are what I did to my children. The instability instilled in me, I instilled in them. To this day I pray for God to “loose” them from the spirit of rejection and instability. Thankfully their mother was and is a great mother.

  After ripping off a drug dealer, I decided it was time to make a change. I wasn’t a praying man, but I remember clearly asking God to “help me make a change and find a way out of this cycle of depression covered by periods of exaltation by drugs.” Sure I covered the depth of despair in my heart with lies, deception and false bravado, but deep inside I had nothing and I knew it. I did drugs to cover the nothingness. It’s common today. I meet people every day that their entire life has been a futile attempt to cover the nothingness inside. There is only one solution to this emptiness and His name is Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, no one has told me yet.

So after my girlfriend got pregnant, a change had to be made. I went to join the Air Force. The recruiter said to meet him at his office in the morning and he would take me to test. I arrived and he drove me to the test site out about an hour away. After the test I waited for him to pick me up but he never showed up. All the other recruiters came and went. Then after waiting about an hour, the Army recruiter came by to pick up his test scores and he offered me a ride. In the car he looked over my test scores and said I “maxed” the test. When we arrived at the recruiting offices, the Air Force recruiter was nowhere to be found. I waited and waited. The Army Recruiter kept poking his head out asking if I wanted to wait inside. I finally went inside and he said he could get me a five Thousand Dollar bonus with my scores. That sounded great. I asked how fast I could go and he said the next day. That sounded great too.

Before I could grasp the weight of this decision I was in Fort Bliss getting my hair cut off and waiting to be sent “up the hill” to start basic training. I called my girl that night and she was crying saying the Air Force recruiter called her and said, “The Army sucked and that for a family it would be terrible and that my decision was horrible”. He was fortunate I was so far away.

The day we were sent up the hill was my twenty fifth birthday. They gave us a false sense of security the first week prior to this day. This changed quickly. I did about a thousand pushups. Not bad for someone who could barely do twenty. This little tiny bad ass drill sergeant came to me and asked me why I didn’t shave today. I said I had and he slammed his “round brown” drill sergeant hat into my nose and told me not to lie anymore. About a minute later a giant drill sergeant came down my row toward me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the little drill sergeant walking in the row behind me. The giant stopped in front of me and yelled, “Why didn’t you shave today?” I cowardly said, “I forgot.” The little drill sergeant chuckled and they walked off.

I woke up the next day barely able to move. I didn’t think I could walk, run or much less do anymore pushups, but in agony, I did about a thousand more. This pain gradually, and I mean gradually diminished over the next week. I started to excel. I could see rewards for effort and I liked it. The American military can sure motivate you.

I graduated after thirteen weeks of training. I was fifty pounds lighter, stronger and faster than I have ever been, and best of all “drug free”. I had direction, purpose and one of the best caretakers there is, the Army. I was obsessed. Drugs taught me how to be single focus minded and now my focus was all “Army”. Over the next thirteen years, I graduated number one in every school I went to. I was promoted at the earliest possible promotion date for every rank. I was a changed person----On the outside……

Brian Jr. was born at Fort Hood, Killeen, Texas. Life couldn’t be better. After two years, we were assigned to Germany where Justin was born. We had a rocky marriage, but never outwardly fought like so many couples I saw. I was still focused. I made Sergeant (E-5) at two years and Staff Sergeant (E-6) at four years. I excelled and wasn’t making any mistakes for the first time in my life. I went to Special Forces orientation course from Germany and was “selected”. I was sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I went to airborne training “in route”. What a blast!!!

Then came Desert Storm. I was in the 82nd Airborne Division. I hurt my knee the week before the call went out. I was sitting on the plane to go and the Colonel told me to get off and get my knee fixed. I didn’t want to miss this one, but he said, “We’ll be there a long time”.

He was right. After surgery to repair my knee, I headed over just in time for the war. I didn’t have to spend the time in the desert for the “build up” like most of the soldiers. The war was over quick. On a chartered plane, we headed back. When we took off the plane immediately turned back toward the tower and passed it several times. We knew something was wrong. The pilot finally said the landing gear didn’t retract on one side and when he put it back down to try to retract it again, it got stuck. Anyway, we flew to another airport where they put down foam on the runway. We were all poking fun at the situation when the stewardess said, “shut up, put your heads down and brace for a crash landing”. Several soldiers mocked her. She said, “You can just get off this plane’. A soldier in the back yelled, “That’s what we get paid for baby, give us some parachutes”. It was funny until the last few minutes. I found myself praying again. Funny how we pray only in the direst circumstances. We landed without incident and after a few hours of repair, we flew home.

Shortly after returning to Fort Bragg, I received orders for recruiting duty. With the shape my knee was in, I figured it would be best for a while. I was selected for promotion to Sergeant First Class (E-7) shortly thereafter. I returned to my wife’s hometown for recruiting duty. To my surprise, the same Air Force recruiter was still there and guess who outranked him.

I was speaking at schools about the war. They even did a newspaper article on me. I went to see my dad. I was proud of my accomplishments and wanted to show him what I’ve become. All he said was, “There are a lot of drugs in the Army” in the most demeaning voice he could muster. ‘Ouch” is all I could think of.

I excelled at recruiting. I loved the Army and it showed. The other services had no chance. They were getting fired left and right. Recruiting duty is difficult for most, but for me it was easy. I could relate to the hopelessness most of the youth had and I exploited it. After two years I became “Station Commander”. This was different than recruiting. Now I had to motivate soldiers to recruit. I was off the front lines and I didn’t like it. Most of the soldiers were pissed off at being taken from their main job and placed in recruiting. A lot of turmoil, long hours, and some unfaithfulness took its toll on my marriage.

New job requirements, financial problems, a divorce, a change of duty stations to Alabama and I found my life start to unravel. I wasn’t making enough money to support all my obligations. Suddenly the Army didn’t have the same draw for me and I lost focus. After the Somalia incident where they drug our soldiers through the streets naked and President Clinton doing nothing about it except for having two homosexual soldiers for dinner in the Whitehouse with that “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” BS, I stated, “If he gets reelected, I’m out.” I was selected for E-8 and then the country reelected you know who so I got out. Funny how I stuck to that word when I wasn’t sticking to my other obligations.

All in all, I loved the Army. It was the first time in my life I had affirmations for doing good. I felt smart for the first time also. With a dad that called me “stupid” every day, I really needed that.

Just before I got out, I got my real estate license and started working at a real estate company in Birmingham.

I couldn’t stand the residential real estate so I set my sights on Commercial Real estate. I excelled at this, but I wasn’t living right. I can tell you now, how clear it is, but in the midst of it, I was