"Up to, and including my life ..." Memorial Day.

I don’t normally take calls on weekends. But this request was different.

Two years ago, on Memorial Day weekend, I made an exception. The message was clear. This one was different. Joe had spent 21 years in the US Army and wanted to talk.

Joe had just read The Trade; it caught him off guard. Not because of the story itself but because something in it gave language to a feeling he hadn’t been able to say out loud. It wasn’t burnout. It wasn’t confusion. It was something heavier. Quieter. Something he couldn’t talk about…something that gave him shame.

He was still in uniform; it had been 21 years. For half of his life, he had lived by an oath. One that, if you could read the fine print, would suggest that he would give and follow orders. And that these orders could take everything he knows. Up to and including his life.

That chapter was coming to a close. He was a few months out from rotating out of the Army. This would be his first time as a civilian since he was a twenty-year-old kid living in Mississippi.

When the Zoom screen lit up, he was sitting tall. Full uniform. I could see the patches on his chest and sleeves. The kind you earn, not the kind you buy: Airborne. Ranger. These were not the kind of things you put on to prove something. The type you wear because you’ve been through what most people don’t talk about. The kind that tells a story…but only to those who know how to read it.

Joe wasn’t fidgety. He wasn’t unsure. He was calm. Grounded. Strong. But something in his eyes told me this call wasn’t just about “what’s next.” It was about what he’d carried.

Throughout his career, Joe had held responsibilities most civilians will never come close to understanding. He had stood in firefights and long moments of breathless silence that would split most people in half. He had been in rooms where decisions were made that could not be undone. And he wore the weight of the decisions that couldn’t be undone. And somewhere in all of that, he became someone the world could count on to do what was next.

But now, the uniform was coming off.

And for the first time in his adult life, no one was telling him what to do next.

There was only breathless silence.

He wasn’t afraid. But he was adjusting. To stillness. To space. To being seen not as a rank, but as a man.

He didn’t speak in big statements. He wasn’t selling himself.

What struck me most was not what he had done, but how much of it he had done without asking for anything in return.

What moved him now wasn’t only the duty to country, protection of troops, memory of missions, fallen comrades or lost identity. It was the fragile things—stories about kids, about ordinary days that turned tragic for people he had never met, but was unable to protect. For people who never should have been hurt. That’s where his voice tightened. That’s where the emotion came through.

Not in telling his own story, but in the moments where the lives of others reminded him how quickly everything can change.

He told me a story of combat, a story he said still makes him cry. It was the type of story you can’t unhear, and he will never be able to unlive. He was sharing the truth, and its weight was obvious without needing any details.

It was the culmination of these things that brought Joe to me.

That’s what Memorial Day does. It brings those memories to the surface, even when you’ve spent years learning to carry them quietly.

Joe wasn’t looking for a promotion or applause. He wasn’t trying to translate his military career into a flashy civilian title. He was doing something far braver. He was asking who he was when no one was saluting. When the resume of patches come off. When the weight shifts from the body to the soul.

Since that day, Joe has made an incredible transition into civilian life. One day, Joe and I will tell his whole story … right here on Substack.

On this Memorial Day, I’ll choose to remember and pay respects to those who gave their lives to protect our country.

And I’ll do the same for those who are still here, but gave their livelihood to do the same.

Check in on a veteran today.

It might save a life.

I never know who I’m going to meet every time I hit “Join Meeting.”

I’ve been hosting calls for three years and have captured 1,000 conversations, just like Joe.

And I will share them all on my substack: The Inevitable.

One story at a time.

These are their stories.

This is the Normal 40, and these are their stories.

Follow me here (Free) to hear the stories of thousands more:

https://normal40.substack.com/