Justin found it difficult to adjust to civilian life after returning. He was impatient and irritable, and found that most of the things other people thought were important seemed uninteresting to him after his experiences, even going to school and getting a job.
View Video TranscriptJustin:
Coming back, it was great just because you're back and I was engaged at the time so all of that. But I just know there was a big difference in how I just viewed people and viewed life in general. And I guess you could say, I was a little bit... what's the words I'm looking for? I just didn't give people the time of day as much. I didn't tolerate a whole lot and it wasn't like I was going around blowing up with people and things like that, but I just had kind of a tainted view on life in general. But I think one of the other big things was I just was angry.
There was a lot of stuff that you deal with and, yeah, I just saw a huge change in my fiancé, my wife now, and my parents. There was an edge to me. I’ll say that. And then another huge adjustment was when you go from being America’s hero and really doing something that you felt really mattered to going to college classes and then getting a job. It’s like you’ve heard people say, “It’s a drug, that adrenaline rush and that high of getting shot at and going through stuff that you go through.” And really just kind of being on the front lines of that and then coming back to life it’s like, “Really, is this it?” Yeah, so that was a huge, huge adjustment.
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