99. Christmas: Once Again, "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year"

"It's the most wonderful time of the year.
There'll be much mistletoeing,
And hearts will be glowing
When loved ones are near . . . "

Until December 25, 2006, Christmas was always my favorite holiday.  I loved the music, the lights, the food, and, most of all, the idea of one day when friends and family could put aside their differences and laugh together without restraint.  I always associated the holiday with freedom from responsibilities - school was out, work was on hold, and for twenty-four hours, I could escape from the tightly-wound ball of perfectionistic tendencies that dictated my everyday life.  At the age of twenty-two, I embraced Christmas with the same enthusiasm as when I was little and found myself too excited to sleep.  Back then, I'd pass the long hours until morning listening to tape recordings of books like Roald Dahl's "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" until my parents finally allowed my sister and I to race downstairs, open presents, and read "Santa's" letter cautioning us to be good again during the upcoming year.

That all changed on December 25, 2006 when, unknowingly, I said goodbye to my late husband, Jon, for the last time.  He had been at home on R&R from Iraq during the two weeks leading up to Christmas, and Christmas day just happened to be the date he was required to return to his unit.  I always describe that last moment I saw him as being somewhat surreal and unsettling - he turned his head back toward me, flashed a big goofy grin, and then he was gone.  But he'll be back, I told myself.  And soon...right?  In theory, things were supposed to get easier during the second half of his year-long deployment; we were on the downslope, and although Jon always told me he didn't like to count the days (that was bad luck), reaching the six-month mark represented a milestone...and, for me, a huge relief.  As it turns out, of course, it's not that simple - there is no safety zone in a place like the one to which he had to return, and over the next several months, many good men lost their lives there.  I was twenty-two, life was just beginning, and as we said our goodbyes, I naively believed the worst of it was over.  Oh, how wrong I was.

We didn't have Skype or anything like that back then - just email and photos - and as I watched him disappear down the runway, I mentally prepared myself for the fact that the last couple of weeks of precious memories would have to sustain us for the remainder of the deployment.  No amount of preparation, however, could have helped me face what would ultimately amount to a far longer reality.  As you might imagine, Christmases after that year were always among the most dreaded of days.  It should have just been another hard date, but I always found myself haunted by what I now knew was the last fleeting moment I'd see him alive.  How can a person go from being so happy and vibrant and alive one minute to being dead and gone the next??  Part of me wanted to bottle up a mental snapshot of his face in that moment so that I'd never forget the sight of it while the other part couldn't stomach the sickening feeling I got whenever I realized that moment was it - the last one.  For the first couple of Christmases, I think I was still somewhat in shock...then shock turned to sadness, anger, trepidation, and finally, back to sadness when I finally started to deal with many of the issues I'd tried to push aside for years.  To say I was stubbornly opposed to the possibility of enjoying the holidays again would be an understatement.

As I've finally realized and learned to accept, however, Christmas is just another day.  Sometimes it might be a day full of joy and laughter and togetherness, and, as many soldiers can attest, sometimes it might be spent many miles away from home in a combat zone.  For me, this Christmas was a blissfully uneventful and relaxing occasion during which, for the first time in longer than I can remember, I felt peace.  Ah, peace...such a wonderful, elusive thing.  After years of yearning and searching for it, I finally seem to have found it.  I spent the day doing a whole lot of nothing with the man I love and feeling immensely grateful for his unquestioning acceptance of who I am, complicated past and all.  He is, in every sense of the word, my partner, and I'd be absolutely lost without him.  We laughed, cooked together, ate Christmas dinner, and made plans for the weeks ahead.  I can honestly say it doesn't get much better than that, nor could I have asked for more.  Christmas doesn't have to be the big, boisterous, shiny occasion it was when I was a kid for it to still be as perfect as anything ever gets in this life.

I guess I must have been relatively good this year because the gifts I can neither appraise nor quantify have been plentiful.  The greatest of all these gifts is, without a doubt, love.  Thanks to love, I can now look forward to future holiday seasons with a smile.  Thanks to love, Christmas is once again one of the most truly wonderful times of the year.  And thanks to love, optimism and excitement have taken the place of stubborn opposition to holiday happiness.  To simply call myself "lucky" doesn't do justice to this new reality; it fails to pay proper tribute to what is nothing short of a major turning point in my life.  For the first time in years, the thought of a "happy" new year doesn't seem so far-fetched...in fact, I'm looking forward to it.

98. Happy…to be wrong

"I'll never love again . . ." 

"It's not possible for me to ever be that happy again. . . " 

"My life is over - I've already had the best this world has to offer, and I lost it all before the age of twenty-three . . . "

These were all phrases that became a crutch for me after I lost Jon, a fall-back when life got hard.  Bad things would happen, some of which had nothing to do with Jon, and I crumbled because I thought I had been through enough and couldn't take any more heartache or adversity.  I sometimes used what had happened to Jon and I as an excuse to fall apart in situations where I probably could have been stronger or made better decisions because everything just seemed so inherently unfair - life doesn't give a shit about my happiness, I thought, so why should I care about doing the right thing or aspiring to great things when it doesn't really matter anyway?  I could cure cancer and then get hit by a bus the next day . . . you can call it karma, or maybe it's just another example of our complete and utter inability to exert any control over the things that really matter - things like people . . .  and love.  Those are the things we cherish at the end of the day, and those are the heartaches that cut the deepest.  Even when things finally started to get a little better, I was still, at best, treading water.  I fought just to keep my head above the surface, and I'd resigned myself to getting by for the rest of my days without true love in my life.

That was then.  This is now.  Finally, there is something to live for, something greater than myself.  My friends and family were right - I can be happy again, and it doesn't have to look the same as it did before for it to be just as good.  In fact, it might even be better now that I have a far deeper and more informed appreciation for what matters in this life.  It's not as simple as "I'm a good person and, therefore, good things happen to me."  It's also not as straightforward as "I did a bad thing, and now I deserve to be punished."  Bad things happen to good people.  They happen all the time.  It doesn't work in that tit-for-tat manner to which we often cling when we seek an explanation for the inexplicable.  We like that model because it's logical and coherent . . . but that would imply there is some logic or coherence to life, and there simply is not.  It's taken me over six years to get that through my stubborn skull, but I think I finally understand that it's true.

Today I find myself living in a great country that believes in things like freedom and equality.  I'm healthy, and I have a promising career ahead of me.  I have a supportive family and wonderful friends who put up with me, even when I feel like I'm too busy to breathe.  I'm almost done with the law degree that's now taken nearly eight years to complete from start to finish.  The Captain Jonathan D. Grassbaugh Veterans Project officially has clients.  People seem to want to tell the story of how I got to this point, and they smile with happiness at what represents a "good news story," rare though those are in the media these days.

Most importantly, I am desperately head-over-heels in love with a wonderful man who treats me like the most important person in the world.  He makes me laugh like a hyena and has this uncanny way of finishing my thoughts before I can even get the words out.  Whenever things get a little rough, he reaches over to squeeze my hand, and on the mornings we're not physically together, he makes it a point to wake up first so that I always have a sweet "good morning" message waiting for me.  He tells me every day how happy he is to have met me - in Afghanistan, of all places.  It doesn't get much better than that, and for all those things I am most grateful.  I literally get chills when I think about how lucky I am.  I've never been so happy to say that I'm glad I was wrong - happiness after heartache is possible.  In fact, this kind of happiness is perhaps the best kind of happiness because it's the result of slogging through a whole lot of bad to get back to what's good.

If you look up the definition of happiness, it's described as a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions, ranging from contentment to intense joy.  If you ask me, though, it's so much more.  It's mental, emotional, and everything in between.  It's hard work, it's perseverance, and it's often the product of blood, sweat, and, ironically, tears.  I'm just happy to say that, for me, far more of those tears are happy ones these days.  There will be more challenges and more adversity, I'm sure.  There will be other times when I feel like the world has turned against me and refuses to cut me some slack.  But when these things happen, I'll try to remind myself to smile and recognize that this too shall pass.  The happiness that comes after the storm is well worth all the rain.

97. Veterans Day Weekend 2013

Although I'm not usually at a loss for words, I cannot adequately describe the whirlwind of incredible experiences I've been fortunate enough to enjoy this Veterans Day weekend.  Perhaps I should simply let the record speak for itself; it will do justice to the events that have brought me to the brink of happy tears more than any words I might offer.  On this Veterans Day 2013, I thank all my brothers and sisters from the bottom of my heart for your selflessness and sacrifice - this great nation owes you a debt of gratitude that can never truly be repaid:

MSNBC - "Taking the Hill" Panel on Remembrance:

http://www.msnbc.com/taking-the-hill/watch/the-influence-of-9-11-62748227554

ABC/FoxNews - "Good Day Columbus" Interview:

http://abc6onyourside.com/shared/news/features/good-day/stories/wsyx_monday-veteran-featured-cosmopolitan-magazine-6021.shtml#.UoFNgKXHJfM

Tiffin University - Veterans Day Ceremony Speech:

Today is Veterans Day. Though sometimes confused with Memorial Day, today is about service. It’s about thanking a veteran for their sacrifices and rejoicing in the fact we are all fortunate to live in a great country where our freedom is attributable to selfless service. It’s been said that, “war has a way of distinguishing between the things that matter and the things that don’t.” You can ask any veteran if that’s true, and no matter what his or her experiences in the military have been, I can guarantee you the answer will an emphatic yes.

My name is Jenna Grassbaugh, and I’m a third year law student at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. I’m also an active duty Army Captain, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the proud Gold Star wife of another veteran, a veteran who taught me to recognize what matters and what doesn’t. That veteran, my late husband, Captain Jonathan Grassbaugh, lived by the motto “non sibi,” – “not for oneself.” He told me that despite the challenges life, law school, and the future might bring, at the end of the day, what mattered was that we had each other. He promised he would love me through the best of the best times and the worst of the worst.

He was standing at a pay phone in Iraq when he uttered these words. You see, six weeks after we were married, he was deployed for a second time with the 82nd Airborne Division. Ten months after our wedding, on April 7, 2007, two Army officers knocked on my door to tell me that Jon had been killed by an Improvised Explosive Device in Zaganiyah, Iraq. Despite our hopes of starting a family and growing old together, our dream was not to be. Jon was twenty-five years old when he died.

During a trip home from Washington, D.C. last year, I was at Reagan Airport for an early morning flight and, as usual, I had over-packed. As I checked my heavy bag in at the ticket counter and then hoisted it up onto the screening belt, I was struck by a sudden sense of déjà vu. I've been here before, I thought. This all seems incredibly familiar. It was in that moment that I remembered lifting a similar bag up onto the same conveyor belt over six years ago as I prepared to leave D.C. after Jon's funeral. On that first trip, I felt weighed down - both physically and emotionally. Leaving my husband's body behind was hard enough; contemplating what on earth to do with the rest of my life seemed unimaginable. My bag was heavy and full, only instead of clothes and shoes, it contained things like a wooden flag box, a folded American flag, brass casings from the 21-gun salute, and a plastic container full of all the letters Jon had ever written me. I was a 22-year old widow going home, only I didn’t know where home was without Jon. It was the worst of the worst times, and I had to navigate them without the one person I knew could show me the way.

Over these past six years, I’ve tried so many different things to overcome this tragedy, though I don't think you ever truly “get over” the loss of someone who made this world a better and brighter place. I withdrew from my first year of law school at William & Mary and threw myself into my Army career. I deployed to Iraq as a Military Police platoon leader. I ran races to raise money for organizations that help the families of fallen soldiers. Eventually, I realized I still wanted to serve in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, and I applied to the Army’s Funded Legal Education Program. I began law school again – this time at Ohio State. It wasn’t until last fall, however, that I realized there might still be more I could do to turn my worst nightmare into a positive good. I realized I had the power to ensure that Jon’s belief in selfless service would live on into perpetuity and that I could help others in need in the process.

Here in the state of Ohio, there are more than 900,000 veterans. As I’ve discovered, not everyone understands exactly what constitutes a veteran or can appreciate the kind of unique legal issues they often face after returning home from what might be their first, second, or even fifth deployment. A veteran is anyone who has served overseas during a time of war. It is not, necessarily, the forty-five-year-old Colonel who retires with full benefits after twenty years. Instead, it might very well be the Staff Sergeant who served two tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, and then separates from the Army with child support payments, debt issues, and severe post-traumatic stress disorder. The more research I did, the more the problems facing veterans caused me concern. The Legal Aid Society of Columbus is overwhelmed by a caseload that requires specialized knowledge and expertise, and, as of last fall, there was no central location to which Ohio's veterans could go for help.

With this knowledge, I started brainstorming ideas for how to go about providing free legal services for veterans. I realized that Ohio State did not have a clinic dedicated to tackling veterans’ issues, and I decided it was time to change that reality. I'd also reached a rough point personally in dealing with some of the issues associated with Jon's death, many of which I think I'd more or less suppressed up until that point. My hopelessness at how to deal with things completely beyond my control gave me the motivation I needed to do something more tangible with the time and resources I had at my disposal. On October 26, 2012, I attended a Veterans Wraparound Summit hosted by former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Stratton, which provided me with the tools I needed to understand the complexities of the legal issues facing veterans. From there, I used the models of several preexisting clinics at other law schools around the country to approach the Moritz faculty with an informal proposal for a similar project. After much discussion and compromise, we agreed on a basic structure for the program: the Captain Jonathan D. Grassbaugh Veterans Project would pair veterans with law students to help them sort through their legal issues and find solutions. Practicing attorneys – many current JAG lawyers in the Ohio National Guard – would volunteer to supervise the student work.

I donated the seed money, endowing the fund with $250,000 of the insurance funds I received upon Jon's death, and the law school is currently engaged in a fundraising drive to match that amount. This will ultimately enable us to provide 2,000 hours of free legal services to veterans annually. The Captain Jonathan Grassbaugh Veterans Project was officially launched on April 5, 2013, just two days before the sixth anniversary of Jon's death. The project is up and running today, and Moritz students are actively assisting veterans as we speak.

I can honestly say that it was not until I founded the Grassbaugh Veterans Project that I finally felt a sense of real peace and happiness. The mission of the project means more to me than any material thing that money could ever buy. This is Jon’s legacy and it’s one that will go on long after I’m gone too. It means that my other very worst fear will not come true – that being that, in time, he’ll be forgotten.

Ironically, in the military, one person can feel very insignificant—success in combat depends on countless people at various times during multiples phases of a carefully-planned operation. The military is practically the poster child for the concepts of “communication” and “interaction” and “teamwork,” which is probably why the “Army of One” slogan didn’t do quite as well as “Be All You Can Be” or even “Army Strong.” The reality, however, is that without one person doing their job and playing their part, military precision breaks down. One person can make a difference – a big one. One person can have a vision for how to save lives or how to improve the status quo, and provided they can rally an army of supporters, so to speak, that vision can become a reality.

So, despite being cautioned against doing anything too drastic or giving away too much money, my stubborn determination to make the Grassbaugh Veterans Project a reality will ultimately, I hope, make a meaningful difference in the lives of others – others who have already given so much and sacrificed time away from their families and the safety of home to deploy overseas and fight for our freedom. Quite frankly, I never second-guessed my decision to pursue this vision or doubted the need see it through to completion. I was overwhelmed at the university’s support for the concept once I was able to demonstrate how we might make it happen. And once we got the ball in motion, it didn’t stop. I would have been happy to see this project become a reality by, say, the time I graduate in May of 2014. Instead, by the time I graduate, the project will have been up and running for an entire academic year, and law students will have helped to fight countless legal battles on behalf of veterans. It wasn’t a miracle, and I didn’t do anything extraordinary or superhuman. I just did what I thought was the right thing to do. This project is my attempt to identify and address veterans’ legal issues at a time when we can still prevent the worst of the worst from befalling our nation’s heroes.

A couple of weeks ago, I returned to Washington, D.C., a bittersweet place for me, and ran my fourth Army Ten Miler race. The course winds through the entire city, past the Smithsonian Museums and national monuments, across Memorial Bridge via Arlington National Cemetery, and ends back where it began at the Pentagon. I ran to raise money for Fisher House, the organization that came to the government’s aid during the recent shutdown when it provided funds to families of fallen soldiers to cover funeral costs and travel expenses. Later that weekend, I spoke at an event overlooking Arlington National Cemetery, where those who served our nation with dignity and honor are laid to rest – including Jon. At Arlington, Jon rests amongst many heroes, all of whom believed in the importance of selfless service and gave their lives to that end. Each of these heroes represents just one person, but one person who meant the whole world to their loved ones and left a lasting impact during their short lifetime. President Abraham Lincoln said that it’s not the years in a life – it’s the life in the years. Jon didn’t have the luxury of many years, but he was one person who managed to achieve so much and represented so many wonderful things: he was an Army Ranger. A Patriot. Leader. Friend. A loving husband. He made me a better person – and he still does.

Today is about the kind of selfless service in which Jon and all the soldiers he served alongside believed wholeheartedly. The Grassbaugh Veterans Project seeks to honor that selflessness and sacrifice by helping those who return home from war to live better and happier lives. The project is about distinguishing the things that matter from the things that don’t. Thank you to all veterans for what you have done and continue to do on behalf of all of us. You matter, and we are forever grateful.

96. The Ultimate Conundrum (Re-blogged from the Millennial Veteran Project)

Note:  The following article was originally published on the Millennial Veteran Project blog, a site that, for various reasons, is no longer operational.  

On August 30, 2013, the Department of Defense announced the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.  His name was Staff Sergeant (SSG) Michael H. Ollis, and he was a native of Staten Island, New York.  SSG Ollis died of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device, small arms, and indirect fire.  He was 24 years old.

SSG Ollis’ family will now undergo the heartbreaking process of burying their beloved son, which will undoubtedly be followed by many years of questioning what could have been (and should have been), had things turned out differently.  Yet, the average American citizen is unlikely to know SSG Ollis’ name.  In fact, some Americans are unaware that we’re still at war in Afghanistan.  Nothing could be further from the truth, and yet the latest and greatest Hollywood scandal will undoubtedly get far more news coverage than the most recent American casualty from Operation Enduring Freedom.

Why is that?  Why do we care more about things like the birth of the royal baby than we do about the loss of American lives?  Have we become so emotionally desensitized that unless a record-breaking number of Soldiers die in one catastrophic incident (see, e.g. “Portraits of Lives Lost:  Thirty U.S. troops were killed Aug. 6, 2011, when their Chinook helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan,” available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/portraits-of-lives-lost/2011/08/09/gIQAWxmF5I_gallery.html#photo=1), we barely bat an eye and mindlessly continue on about our day?  Do we really need another World War II with its staggering loss of lives to feel anything resembling remorse and sadness these days?  Or will we be content to simply continue to push aside the more difficult and morally problematic issues until, after over twelve years, the war in Afghanistan is officially over?

And will it ever really be over?  For those of us who have already lost more than we could have imagined, the war will continue in some way or another for many years to come.  Combat operations may end, but the questions that continue to haunt us will lurk persistently just below the surface, always threatening to rear their ugly heads at the most inconvenient of times. As a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan and the widow of a Soldier who returned home from Iraq in a flag-draped casket, I often struggle with the ultimate conundrum:  Are we simply giving up after twelve hard fought years?  And if so, what does that mean about the sacrifices we have made? Should we just give up and walk away after attempting to eradicate terrorism from that area of the world for more than a decade? 

  

Or should we continue to stick it out until we’ve achieved “mission success?”  And what does that even mean in these asymmetric conflicts against non-state actors?  On the one hand, mission success, however you choose to define it, is the quintessential foundation of my military career; on the other, I intimately understand the finality and loss that comes with death. It’s permanent in a way that nothing else is in this world.  I’ve seen one too many heartbroken families whose lives are forever changed when they are suddenly forced to continue on without the husband, wife, father, mother, son or daughter who made their life worth living.  For those of us who find ourselves facing this unthinkable reality, the question we avoid at all costs and can’t help but come back to over and over again is relatively simple:  why? 

Given this conundrum, you might imagine how I felt when an article was published this summer regarding the contemplated immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan (see “U.S. Considers Faster Pullout in Afghanistan,” available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/world/asia/frustrated-obama-considers-full-troop-withdrawal-from-afghanistan.html?_r=0).  I looked around with a momentary sense of panic and thought, “Wait! We’re still here, and there is still so much to be done!” However, my next thought, was, “well, actually, maybe withdrawal would be for the best.”

Like many, my feelings are incredibly mixed. Like any trained soldier, I never want to leave a problem unsolved, but I wonder how much more good can come from our continued presence in Afghanistan.  Further complicating my views is the fact that my husband, Jon, was killed in Iraq, and I served there as a Platoon Leader a year later.  In 2011, we officially withdrew from the region, leaving many of the same problems we’d faced during my tour still unresolved.  As I watched the video footage of the last of our vehicles crossing the Iraq border into Kuwait, I was filled with an unsettling feeling of disappointment and relief – disappointment at the fact that we’d abandoned the mission my husband died for, and relief at the fact that it was all finally over.

Barely two years later, much of Iraq has returned to its former chaotic state of violence.  Just recently I read an article that included a photo of the marketplace we patrolled through every day in Mahmudiyah, Iraq - it used to be relatively safe and secure, but had recently been targeted by several suicide bombs and looks to be an absolute catastrophe once again.  (see “Deadly Blasts Rock Southern Iraqi Cities,” available at http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/201361673910345481.html).  It makes me wonder what, if anything, we’ve learned over this past decade, and whether things will be different this time around given the recent rumblings about contemplated military intervention in Syria.  Many political commentators are comparing the current situation to the one we faced years ago in deciding whether to invade Iraq.  I recall all too vividly how it felt as an eighteen-year-old ROTC Cadet to witness the symbolic toppling of Saddam Hussein’s infamous statue on the news – at the time, my friends and I celebrated what we thought was a quick and easy victory.  But that was before the human cost of the decision to invade hit all too close to home, and my present-day feelings are far less celebratory.  This time, my instinct is to shudder when I think about the potential consequences of getting involved in another conflict before we’ve figured out how to “end” the current one.  Perhaps Plato had it right – only the dead have seen the end of war, especially when the war never truly ends.

In 1963, country music singer Skeeter Davis released a song entitled “The End of the World.”  Among many unanswerable questions, Skeeter asked why:  “Why does my heart go on beating?  Why do these eyes of mine cry?   Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?  It ended when you said goodbye.”  As Americans, we love a good story with a nice, neat, happy ending, but for those of us who never got to say goodbye, the realities of life are messy, and the whys will always remain.  History will undoubtedly offer many explanations for the decisions that were made, but no explanation can justify the loss of what cannot be replaced.  The catastrophic losses we suffered during World War II are often equated with a righteous victory, but for those families directly affected by those losses, there will always be questions like the ones SSG Ollis’ family will ask themselves in the days and years ahead:  Why my son?  Why my husband?  Why my father?  Although times may have changed, the answer is still the same:  there is no answer.  There never is. 

95. Happy

"No one can take away your pain...so don't let anyone take away your happiness."
~Unknown

It's been too long since I last wrote, and for that there have been several reasons. Believe it or not, all of them are good. Good, you say? During a deployment to Afghanistan? Yep, believe it or not, this has truly been an experience I feel grateful to have had, albeit for a relatively short period of time.

Quite frankly, I'd stay here for longer if I could. I've learned more in just a few months in this environment than I could ever have hoped to learn in the equivalent time back at home. It may sound strange to hear me say that I feel relatively "happy" in Afghanistan, but truthfully, I can say it without hesitation. I work with wonderful people, I have loving friends and family waiting for me back at home, and I have gained invaluable insight into a delicate situation about which I can now express an informed opinion. Personally and professionally, it doesn't get much better than that. My experience here in Afghanistan has been markedly different than my previous deployment to Iraq, perhaps most notably because it's been six years since Jon's death and I'm not inextricably linked to the very same country where he spent the last days of his life. This separation, both in terms of time and distance, has allowed me to see things with much more clarity and peace of mind than I've felt in a very long time. To say that I'm relieved to have the weight of grief become a less burdensome thing to carry does not do justice to the extent of my gratitude.

Over the past six years, I've done a lot of things that have almost guaranteed my own unhappiness. I've subsconsciously refused to believe that I could be as happy again as I once was and, consequently, I've worked really hard to compile my very own recipe book of disasters for continued emotional hardship. That stops now. When I return to Ohio in a few weeks, I will turn my attention to ensuring that the Grassbaugh Veterans Project accomplishes its goal of helping veterans, and, in doing so, I anticicpate much joy at seeing the fruits of our labor in action. I'm going to focus on my family and friends and try not to worry so much about the things I can't change that tend to send me into a downward spiral of depression and self-destruction. Last but not least, I'm going to loosen my grip on cynicism and allow myself to experience love and true happiness. My favorite U.S. President, Abraham Lincoln, once said that "people are just as happy as they make up their minds to be."  At this point, I've practically become an expert at making things unnecessarily complicated for myself, and, as a result, I've experienced one too many bad days. Mr. Lincoln dealt with a lot of complicated issues during his presidency, but I think he hit the proverbial nail on the head here: it really is as simple as making the decision to be happy.

I'm happy to say that my mind is made up. Happiness is on the agenda, and I'm not settling for anything less.