My Number’s Up

I didn’t expect to make it home from Iraq. And I didn’t need a close call to tell me that—just woke up one day and knew it.

It was eight months into my deployment in Sadr City, Baghdad. We were running daily resupply missions on a route called Predator. Yeah, Predator. Naming convention wasn’t subtle in those days. I’d already gone to two memorial services for friends. Both gone to IEDs. No firefight. No enemy in sight. Just boom, and gone. They were good men. Trained. Smart. Didn’t matter.

That’s when it hit me. None of it was up to me. Not the training. Not the planning. Not the protocols. Not the armor on the trucks or the prayers before we rolled out. If it was your day, it was your day.

I was scheduled to run convoy the next morning. Another run down Predator. One of my closest friends, Shawn, pulled me aside that night. He looked wrecked. His best friend—his childhood buddy from back home—had just been killed. And now Shawn was spooked. Said he had a bad feeling. Said we’d pushed our luck too far. Said he wanted to take my missions for me.

“You’ve got a wife. Kids. All I’ve got is my mom and my sister. Let me take it.”

That’s the kind of thing that should lift you up. Show you how good men carry each other. But all it did was make it worse.

I was done sleeping. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t think. I just kept playing the scenario in my head. My death. The blast. The aftermath.
My wife.
Nicholas—five.
Stone—just eight months.
I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t breathe. I puked until nothing was left.

When dawn hit, I moved like a man on his way to execution. Feet like lead. Mind numb. I couldn’t even get the words out during the mission brief. Normally, I was the upbeat guy. The soldier’s officer. The one who cracked jokes, made it light, gave the guys something to smile about before we rolled out.

But not that morning. I just looked at them and said, “Let’s go.”

That’s all I had. I’m still ashamed to this day. Those men trusted me to lead them with courage, not despair.

I sat in that truck knowing I was going to die. Not believing. Knowing. And yet we rolled out. And then we rolled back in. Nothing happened.

But the strange part is what happened next.

I didn’t bounce back. I didn’t feel safe again. I didn’t feel lucky. I just stopped caring.

Not in a reckless way. In a settled way. I had accepted it. I was going to die in this place. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon. So be it.

And somehow, that made everything easier.

I started sleeping again. Eating again. Joking again. Shawn and I started greeting each other at the gate with a smirk and a shrug—

“Not today.”

Then we’d head to chow like we hadn’t just tempted fate.

My briefings got fun again. Morale went up. I got sharper, not softer. Because I wasn’t trying to survive anymore—I was trying to lead, to finish the mission, and to take care of my people along the way.

That’s the moment I realized: Fear is overhead. A useless drag on clarity. An emotional luxury you can’t afford when people are counting on you.

What It Taught Me

The truth is, my number was already up. And yours probably is too. We just don’t know when it gets called.

You can train. You can plan. You can hedge. You can pray. None of that changes the fact that you’re not in control of the outcome. All you’ve got is the moment in front of you. And your duty to handle it.

That lesson didn’t stay in Baghdad. I brought it home. I live by it.

Whether I’m leading a team, signing a deal, or helping someone through their storm—I don’t flinch. I don’t waste energy on “what if.” I focus on what’s next. That’s all that matters.

Because I’ve already died in my head more times than I can count. What’s left now is just borrowed time. And I’ll be damned if I waste it on fear.

I’ve lived through worse. So now, I live forward. Every day I’m not blown up? That’s a win.