The more I fought for my future instead of against my past, the more I realized that there wasn't just life for me on the other side of this- there w… - Kyle Carpenter

Stay motivated. It gets old. It gets predictable. It becomes cliché. But in the end, it's good advice. And sometimes, you don't need platitudes or well-wishes or rousing speeches or photo ops, you just need to remember to take the step right in front of you and keep pushing forward, come what may. Honors and rewards are great, but it can't sustain you- you have to keep plugging away on the awful days as well as the great ones. You have to keep trying. You have to keep hanging on, even when there doesn't seem to be any reason to stick to it. You have to find that reason within yourself. You have to stay motivated.

How is one not affected witnessing that degree of evil? You remind yourself why you were over there in the first place- to put a stop to the Taliban and their torture and oppression of their own people. You remind yourself that, if you were able to weaken their stronghold or just give hope to those innocent people, even in the smallest of ways, so that one day they might taste the freedom of safety, then you made a difference. That helps you stay focused. That helps you stay motivated. Life looks different on the other side of a tragedy. The things you once valued have changed. The things you once believed in are scrambled. The things you focused on from day to day are different now. You are still you, but you aren't exactly the same and you never will be again.

I don't remember much about the incident and I definitely don't remember what I was thinking about in the moment, but, again, that's the amazing thing about people: You never know how you're going to step up, or when.