Training was a different kind of hard. I shipped out with a duffel bag and a promise to my daughter that I’d come back better. Days stacked like bricks: reveille, chow, class, field exercise, chow, study, lights out, repeat. I learned to make a bunk with corners sharp enough to cut. I learned maps like they were a new alphabet—azimuth, contour line, resection—and learned to count heartbeats in the quiet between commands. When a cadre chewed me out, I learned I could absorb the hit, fix the error, and remain standing.

I remember an August ruck when the sky broke open and poured. My socks bunched. My heels went raw. Every step was a negotiation with pain. I thought about my father and found, to my surprise, that the thought didn’t hurt me anymore. It propelled me. A captain with sharp eyes and a calm way of walking fell into step without comment. After a minute he said, “You’ve got more in you than you think.” I carried that sentence the way some people carry a medal.

On weekends, I called home—the home Emily and I had made inside base housing. She told me about preschool politics and dirt that tasted like cookies. “Where are you?” she’d ask, and I’d say, “Learning to be strong.” “Me, too,” she’d say, like strength was a crayon you could choose.