Finally Coming Home

The Afghanistan mountains appear in my dreams less often now.

For years, they dominated my nights—jagged peaks silhouetted against a hostile sky, hiding threats in every shadow, every crevice. The same mountains where I made choices that have defined the rest of my life. Choices that saved lives. Choices that took them.

When I returned home to American soil, I thought the most challenging part was over. I was wrong. Physical distance from Afghanistan didn't translate to mental freedom. I carried those mountains with me, built them inside myself, and created my internal terrain of guilt, regret, and unprocessed trauma.

For years, I existed rather than lived. I buried myself in work, building my business with relentless focus—entrepreneurship became my escape, my way to avoid the silence that invited memories. I flinched at loud noises and scanned every room for exits. I pushed away those who tried to get close, afraid they'd see the darkness I was carrying. The man in the mirror became a stranger, and the gap between who I was and who I am seemed unbridgeable.

Then came the day I received a letter in the mail. It was on official government letterhead and used formal language, but the message was clear: my time in Afghanistan was no longer classified. After all these years, I was finally permitted to speak about what happened there.

I sat with that letter for hours, hands trembling. The freedom to speak felt both liberating and terrifying. My experiences, long compartmentalized and locked away, could now be acknowledged, shared, and processed.

Something cracked open inside me that day. Not healing. Not yet…but a fissure through which light could begin to enter.

I found a therapist who specialized in combat trauma, even though I wasn't military. "Trauma doesn't check your credentials," he told me in our first session. He taught me that healing wasn't about forgetting or forgiving myself but about integrating my experiences into the person I was becoming.

"You'll carry Afghanistan with you always," he said. "The question is: how will you carry it?"

That became my work, my purpose: finding a way to carry my past without being crushed by it.

I started small. I sought solace in the mountains, drawn to their vastness and solitude. There was something healing about those towering peaks. They were different from the ones that haunted my memories, yet familiar enough to face my fears. Each hike became an act of reclamation, each summit a small victory.

I spent hours alone, letting the silence of nature replace the chaos in my mind. I began journaling, first hesitantly, then with a growing purpose. The pages became witnesses to my struggle, chronicling not just what had happened in Afghanistan, but my slow, uneven journey back to myself. Writing helped externalize what I'd kept locked inside for so long, giving shape to formless emotions, bringing light to shadowed memories.

Gradually, I started talking, first to other veterans, who understood without explanation, then to close friends, and eventually to a wider circle. Each telling loosened the story's grip on me, transforming it from a secret burden to a shareable human experience.

I learned that I'd been asking the wrong question all along. Not "How do I forget?" but "How do I remember in a way that honors both the dead and the living—including myself?"

One summer, I hiked into the Colorado Rockies to summit one of the tallest mountains in the state. Those Rocky Mountain peaks are reminiscent yet distinct from the Hindu Kush. At the summit, while catching my breath and taking in the vast landscape below, I found myself speaking aloud to those I'd lost, to those whose lives I'd taken, to Mac.

"I'm still here," I said. "I'm still trying."

A warm breeze swept across the mountainside, bending the alpine grasses. I felt something shift within me—not forgiveness exactly, but acceptance. Maybe it was a recognition that my story wasn't over, that the rest of my life needn't be defined by its darkest chapter.

That night, camping under a canopy of stars, I dreamt of Afghanistan. But this time, the mountains weren't threatening. They were just mountains—ancient, indifferent to human struggles, beautiful in their harsh way. I stood among them not as a warrior or a victim but simply as a witness, acknowledging what had been without being consumed by it.

I woke with tears on my face and a surprising lightness in my chest.

The path forward hasn't been straight or easy. There are still days when guilt rises like a tide, and memories ambush me in unguarded moments. But those days grow fewer. The present has gradually become louder than the past.

I volunteer now with a search and rescue organization. There's something deeply healing about helping others in the environment that once terrified me. When we're out working on rescuing people in the mountains, I feel a sense of purpose that transcends my own struggles. I don't share my full story with my fellow volunteers, but something in this work speaks to my core: the commitment to helping those in need and bringing them safely home.

Each rescue mission reminds me that while our pasts shape us, they don't have to confine us. In saving others, I'm continually saving parts of myself.

Afghanistan will always be part of me. The choices I made there, the lives lost and saved, and the person I became can't be undone or forgotten. But they no longer define the entirety of who I am or what my life can be.

I've learned that healing isn't reaching some final destination…it's a daily practice, a continuous journey. Every morning, I approach my past with compassion instead of harsh judgment. I've found that the best way to honor those who didn't make it back is to embrace this life I've been given. My gratitude grows deeper for this chance to experience all that being alive offers—both the painful and the beautiful moments that make a complete life.

The mountains of Afghanistan still rise in my mind often. But now, I can acknowledge them without being consumed by their shadows. I can see beyond them to the horizon, to all that still awaits.

Finally, after all these years, I'm learning how to come home to myself.