Widen Your Aperture
How will I behave in combat? This a question I asked myself countless times before my first deployment to Afghanistan. As a young officer who performed well in training, I thought I had the foundation to do well, but there really isn’t a substitute for the real thing. Some things must be experienced before they are truly understood. A tough training scenario can recreate the sounds and chaos of combat, but it can’t recreate the emotions. No matter how stressful the training event, it’s still just that, a training event. There may be notional casualties, but actual Americans aren’t bleeding