We learned to adapt or get swallowed. Meals? We didn’t even make it to the mess decks. We ate cold-ass chow wherever we could: standing, squatting, mid-operation, or in stolen minutes between missions. Sleep wasn’t scheduled. It was stolen. We took catnaps in the curvature of steel frames or curled up on non-skid decks that felt like sandpaper grinding into your back. It wasn’t restful. It was survival. Then we got back up and kept moving.

On top of the long hours, there were no real breaks. When the ops ended, we didn’t clock out. We changed over and stood watch. Navigating the ship, manning port, starboard, or aft lookout — in blistering heat, cutting winds, thick fog, or sandstorms that chewed your face off. The cold was its own enemy. Layer up and you moved like a robot. Don’t, and it sliced through you like a blade. The wind slammed hard enough to rattle your spine if you weren’t locked into the rail. Still, some nights, the sea gave back. The sky would crack wide open with stars, and for a few minutes, everything felt still. I’d stare up, let the silence hit, and think about life. About the weight I carried that wasn’t just mine.

War strips you of something soft — a piece of your innocence, your ease, maybe even your former self. But the thing is, you’re never the only one bleeding quietly like that. Everyone out there was carrying something they didn’t talk about.

That’s why we moved different. We weren’t specialists. We were the backbone. The ones they called when the grind got ugly, the timing got tight, or the margin for error disappeared. We didn’t ask for comfort. We asked what needed doing — then did it.

Coming home was a collision. One world built on urgency and grit slamming into another that felt soft, slow, and foreign. I went from a world where everything was fast, sharp, and mission-critical to a space that felt muted. I carried things back with me — not just memories, but heavy thoughts, unshakable tension, and the kind of mental weight that doesn’t clock out.

The switch flipped, but the noise stayed on.

The truth is, we’re built different. Veterans move, speak, and think in ways that aren’t always understood. The dark humor, the layered slang, the readiness to scan a room or laugh at what others avoid — it’s just how we process. But when two vets cross paths, even strangers, it locks in like you’ve been pulling the same weight for years.

My brother once told me, “It’s your time to shine.” I carried that with me — through deployments, through exhaustion, through doubt.

And I still carry it now.

I didn’t find crafting right away. Life moved on, but the pressure didn’t. I clawed my way through school, found purpose again, and became a clinician working with soldiers battling addiction and behavioral health. I carried their stories, their pain, their ghosts — and they stacked on top of my own. I needed a release. A counterweight. Something to bleed the pressure without losing myself.

That’s when I found crafting. What started as a way to steady my own mind slowly turned into something more. From a small corner of my dinner table, surrounded by life’s beautiful chaos, Deck Ape Co. was born.

Every piece I create carries the weight of the ones who stood with me when the fire burned low. This wasn’t built alone. It took a quiet kind of loyalty — the type that moves in the background, steady and unseen, picking up what life scatters without asking for praise.

Plenty wore my first crooked prints with pride. Not because they were perfect, but because they believed in what I was building.

They don’t chase credit.

But their impact lives in everything I make.

They peddled my swag before I even called it that. No storefront. No strategy. Just word of mouth and real ones who believed in the mission. They burned my early candles and hit me with honest feedback. Let me tag their businesses in vinyl and flashed my credit card skins at checkout, proud to plug the brand. Imperfect gifts got worn like they were limited releases — not because they looked flawless, but because they were made with meaning.