There were supposed to be four phases to basic training, each with varying levels of freedom and responsibility. Red phase was the first and it involved having no freedom while the drill sergeants were as hard on the group as they could be. Our group spent the entirety of basic training, up to the day before graduation, in red phase.

On September 11, 2001, I walked into my ninth-grade algebra class just before 9:00 AM and found the class television playing footage of a building on fire. The sight was unexpected to say the least, but what was even more unexpected was the response from my teacher when I asked when the fire had started.

What's happening in America right now is scary and I've been trying to find the right words to do justice to what I've been feeling. In 2011 I deployed to Iraq and spent 6 months in a combat zone. I had to worry every day if I was going to have a bomb dropped on my head as we took mortars or if the pile of trash on the side of the road was going to send shrapnel through my legs and leave me disabled or worse.