I was having coffee with my friend yesterday, and he harmlessly mentioned that he read a really interesting article about soldiers with PTSD, and how screwed up is that, that the military isn’t taking care of them after their terrible experiences, etc, etc, and before I knew it, I was ranting about how that really pisses me off, that THAT is what people latch onto in terms of the military, stories bout suicide and life-lasting scars, trauma, etc, and the people who have a GOOD EXPERIENCE SERVING are completely neglected / that story is not told, and HOW DARE EVERYONE PRESUME TO KNOW, ETC ETC ETC!!!! And my friend was like….wow. I have never seen you all riled up like this. I then apologized to my friend, you know, for yelling at him. But it got me thinking – I rarely do get all riled up. There are few things that make me do so. I think it’s because I’m afraid that I’m uniformed and don’t really know what I’m talking about it. Even with the military, I personally do not know, I only know what I’ve observed / experienced via brothers Brunstetter. But: I think I need to make sure that I’ve given myself permission to form and state opinions. Is that sad? That I’m telling myself this, so late in my life? I’m just not a very opinionated person; I have other gifts (cat whispering; soup-making.)