Is this real?
He walks into my room with a cameraman and a Secret Service agent.
Oh, shit, this is real.
“Corporal Hamill,” he says, pinning the Purple Heart medal to my hospital shirt. “I want to thank you for your service on behalf of this nation.” He starts asking me questions: How’s your recovery going? Are you in a lot of pain? Is everyone here treating you well?
I know we give people in positions of power a lot of shit, and I know we don’t agree on politics, but I can tell he is a genuine dude. A normal human being who is shaking my hand and talking to me. It’s an amazing experience, and extremely humbling.
The amazing thing our brains do for us is compartmentalize any kind of trauma.
And therein lies the problem: people don’t address PTSD or what psychologists call a moral injury—the feeling of overwhelming shame and guilt, even rage, anger, or betrayal over compromising your moral conscience. If you don’t address these actions and reactions, they come back to haunt you down the road.
I learn all this stuff later. Much, much later.
I get my prosthetic leg one day shy of three months after having my leg blown off. I don’t want to sit in bed. I want to get up and move. I want to recover.
I have great motivation: my wife left me at the hospital. She confessed she did some extramarital shit while I was deployed.
It fills me with such rage and anger that I decide: I’m going to prove her wrong. I’m going to prove everyone wrong. I’m not going to be a statistic. I’m going to succeed in my new post-injury life.
I do daily physical therapy and then go out and party at night with guys who have come back from deployment—guys who have seen others get killed, maimed, and eviscerated. We don’t talk about any of that. We don’t talk about how we miss being with our unit, with our guys, our problems with wives and girlfriends. We don’t address anything that we’re dealing with, which is why things start to go south for me mentally.
I get medically discharged and find a civilian job in New Jersey working on helicopters.
I get remarried.
The demons from all my deployments start eating away at me day and night. I can’t sleep, and I’m drinking too much. I’m smoking like a chimney. I’m not seeing my kids, and I’m shirking my responsibilities—and it’s all because I’ve been ripped out from the familial structure of the military. And I miss the camaraderie.
From day one in the military, your entire day is regimented. It’s scheduled and structured down to the minute. You have a mission. You go out and get it done. Now I don’t have anyone telling me to do anything. I don’t have anyone keeping me in check.
My second marriage ends.
I find myself sitting outside a marsh by my dad’s house in Atlantic City. I’m sitting in the driver’s seat, holding a pistol.
I raise it to my head, about to end my life, when for maybe a half second my kids flash through my mind.
What the fuck am I doing?
I start crying.
I disassemble my weapon, take all the bullets out of the magazine, and throw everything out of the car.
I need to address this. I need to get some help.
I get diagnosed with PTSD. I start seeing a therapist full-time and get my head out of my ass. I quit binge drinking and stop smoking, which I’ve been doing since I was thirteen. I learn the importance of exercise and nutrition and taking care of myself. I begin to claw and scrape my way out of my self-loathing. I stop hating myself for everything. I stop blaming myself for my friends dying and every other shitty thing that’s ever happened to me.
I start speaking to other people about my experiences.
Over time, I start to learn to love my fate. Instead of letting it control me, send me into a deep, spiraling depression, I discover a way to turn it around for good—to help others. If I can help one person every day, regardless of how I do it, then that’s a win for me. If I can use my experiences, my story, to help a person every single day, then everything I’ve gone through in my life is worth it.
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About the Authors
James Patterson is the world’s bestselling author and most trusted storyteller. He has created many enduring fictional characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Michael Bennett, Maximum Ride, Middle School, and I Funny. Among his notable literary collaborations are The President Is Missing, with President Bill Clinton, and the Max Einstein series, produced in partnership with the Albert Einstein estate. Patterson’s writing career is characterized by a single mission: to prove that there is no such thing as a person who “doesn’t like to read,” only people who haven’t found the right book. He’s given over three million books to schoolkids and the military, donated more than seventy million dollars to support education, and endowed over five thousand college scholarships for teachers. For his prodigious imagination and championship of literacy in America, Patterson was awarded the 2019 National Humanities Medal. The National Book Foundation presented him with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, and he is also the recipient of an Edgar Award and nine Emmy Awards. He lives in Florida with his family.
Matt Eversmann retired from the Army after twenty years of service. His last assignment was as an infantry company first sergeant in the 10th Mountain Division during the surge in Iraq. He spent almost half of his career in the 75th Ranger Regiment and was a member of Task Force Ranger, the unit immortalized in the film Black Hawk Down. Eversmann and his family live in West Palm Beach, where he runs his own consulting company, Eversmann Advisory.
Chris Mooney is the international bestselling author of fourteen thrillers. The Mystery Writers of America nominated Remembering Sarah for an Edgar Award. He teaches creative writing at Harvard.
For a complete list of books by James Patterson, as well as previews of upcoming books and more information about the author, visit JamesPatterson.com or find him on Facebook.
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