"Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson~
In the fall of 1998, I was medically retired from the Marine Corps. I was a Gunnery Sergeant, with almost 15 years of service. I had been a Marine since I was 17, and had planned on doing 30 years. But now all of that was over.
A cancer syndrome I have, called von Hippel Lindau (VHL), had progressed, resulting in four brain tumors and kidney cancer on both kidneys. That, when combined with the loss of my left eye due to the disease a few years earlier, added up to my career being over.
I was down, depressed, and confused. But, mainly I was scared. Being a Marine was all I'd wanted to do since I was a 10-year-old kid. What would I do now? And would the disease I have get even worse? I guess I could have just gone home and taken it easy, as was recommended by most medical experts. They'd told me that my best years were far behind me; that I'd never be able to the kind of things I once had...