Twenty years ago, today, I signed the dotted line that enlisted me in the US Army. It's a weird anniversary – a combination of nostalgia, accomplishment, and relief that I survived it. I've sometimes described that decision as the "worst decision I ever HAD to take." It was worst, because there were a lot of things that didn't go well for me, in the Army. But I HAD to take it, because in retrospect, it was a crucial "growing up" for me – something I'd avoided up to that point. That doesn't mean I came out well-adjusted – far from it. My military service made things a lot worse for me, in the short run.
But over the long run, and looking back, I developed a lot of psychological "survival" tools that I've called upon many times since. And it gave me the seeds of a certain confident self-sufficiency that I've always attempted to nurture and value.