The Eyes in the Mirror

Many decades ago, I had just finished basic training in the military. We were assigned to help law enforcement and provide security for a big national event. We were fresh out of basic training, but the level of "basic" training needed for the unit I was volunteering for was high enough that we could handle this duty.

As I stood there, keeping my head on a swivel with my rifle, helmet, and other combat gear on, I saw all the high-level people attending the event. People would walk past me, and I would keep checking the area as they passed.

Then this younger guy appeared, helping an elderly person walk. The elderly person was holding onto the young man's arm, and they were walking very slowly. The young man was very slender, but you could see he was fit. He moved with ease and had an air of self-awareness and strength. As they got closer, he looked at me. His eyes pierced right through me.

His eyes had a strength and intensity that truly made me almost back away.

That feeling had a profound impact on me, one that has stayed with me even after many decades. It wasn't until nearly three years later, when I saw my own reflection in the mirror, that I truly understood what that had been.

We had just come back from a particularly hard operation. After cleaning our gear and making sure everything was ready for any situation, I went to shower. As I came out and cleared the steam off the mirror, the face, and more importantly, the eyes, that looked back at me were not my eyes. They were those eyes I saw back then, in that young guy helping the elderly person.

My own eyes scared me. But not in a bad way. They scared me because I understood who I was and what I had done.

I understood the harsh reality we were living in.

I still get an occasional glimpse of those eyes in the mirror, usually when I'm under stress. And I still get scared.

Maybe the face in the mirror knows something I don't. Or maybe it's waiting for me to remember something I've tried to forget. That young man wasn't just helping an elderly person that day, he was carrying the weight of everything he'd seen and done, just like I am now. The moment I saw those eyes, I was looking at my own future. The strength he'd earned, the price he'd paid.

Now I think I understand why his gaze cut right through me. He wasn't just looking at a young soldier. He was looking at someone who would soon understand that real strength isn't the absence of fear but the willingness to carry what others can't see.

I don't know.

I do know that, some things change you so completely, there's no going back; that strength and burden become the same thing. And that sometimes, the person staring back at you isn't the person you used to be, but the person you had to become. Even if the new person is harsher and more direct.