How did we get here?

I was raised on polished boots and quiet sacrifice.

The daughter of a career Marine who taught me that discipline wasn’t a choice, it was a way of breathing.

Embrace the Suck.

For a long time, I thought my path was already written: enlist, serve, carry forward the same unspoken code.

It.. was in me.

But then I met Kurtz.

Not the man himself, but the idea of him...the unraveling.

The slow drift from order into something far more human and far more dangerous.

Watching Apocalypse Now, I realized war doesn’t just test strength; it reveals the fragile architecture of the mind.

It asks questions discipline alone can’t answer.

So I changed course....

I traded uniforms for textbooks, commands for conversations.

I still serve but now I sit across from the battles no one salutes.

The quiet ones.

The ones that follow people home.

My father taught me how to stand firm in chaos.

Kurtz taught me why some people can’t.

And somewhere between the two, I found my calling.

🩷