I DID NOT become a Navy SEAL.

I graduated high school in 1994, entered the Navy a few days later, and I arrived at Coronado for BUD/s Class 200 a few short months after.

BUD/s - Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training.

And then I quit.

That truth is the same truth for most BUD/s candidates and SEAL initiates.

And these driven, ambitious men spend a lifetime shaking hands with others that know not how to treat a quitter. Everyone cheers well the men that made it. But no one knows the story of those that rang the bell. Walked away. Became the remains of the lion they once believed themselves to be.

That silence and the absence of our stories is now my life’s work.

Failure Is Not the End

The easy narrative says failure defines you. That once you quit, you’re marked forever.

But failure cannot be the end for men like me, it must be a gate. But into what? I had no stories to read, no heroes to study.

SURGE

I had to create a new me. One with shame, confusion, and determination. Then I carried that new me into a new fight. A fight to Stand Up, Recalibrate, Grow, and Evolve (SURGE).

That new fight spanned numerous battlefields.

The classroom, the courtroom, the boardroom, to the family living room. I built a business. Broke a marriage. Raised four daughters. Fought to save another marriage.

I have always broken it, rebuilt it, then failed at it. Again, and again, and again.

But I stand anyway.

One day a lion. Then the Lion at the Gate, another idol at our altar. Then, dust sifting through my hands, and that one grain of me, thicker and rougher than all the others.

The I that is Me.

The Me that Must Be.

Why I’m Writing Now

This isn’t a SEAL story, and it’s not a war memoir. It is not a self-help book dressed in camo.

This is a memoir about failure. The kind most men never admit, and what happens when you strip yourself down to the bone and then live anyway. It’s about the Blue Ridges of Appalachia, where the fog clings to the hollows, masking the haunts in the hills, and people measure you by whether you stay or leave. It’s about fathers and daughters, about husbands and wives, about silence and survival, about philosophy lived instead of just read, about thriving, not just surviving.

It’s called One Day a Lion.

And my Substack is Lion in the Mirror.

What You’ll Find Here

Each week, I’ll bring you pieces of this journey:

Scenes from BUD/s Class 200, where misery breaks men that thought themselves unbreakable.

Appalachian stories, the red clay and the front porch truths that raised me. The haunts in the hollows and the hills, and the mystical reasons why we are here, breathing, walking, seeing.

Philosophy written in scars, against the sounds of the banjo, the acoustic guitar tuned to drop D, and a Mississippi delta slide.

It’s about recalibration, endurance, growth and determination.

Reflections on fatherhood, marriage, and the long, uneven work of becoming human.

This isn’t polished corporate inspiration.

It is raw.

It is crooked.

And Ugly.

Painful.

Too much.

But it’s real.

And maybe that’s what you’ve been waiting to hear.

Join the Pride. Join me at the gate. And in the mirror.

Who are we,

the quitters,

the rebuilders,

the broken ones that refuse to fall

and how must we be?

If you have quit something that you knew you never would. If you have rebuilt yourself from nothing. Just to understand that you still were not who you needed to be. If you’ve ever asked who you are when the title is gone, the uniform is gone, the mask is gone,

Then you’re in the right place.

The lion roared. Then whimpered. Then became.

The I. The Me. The one I Must Be.

If you’ve quit, rebuilt, or looked in the mirror and knew not how to redefine what stared back, then you’re not alone. Let’s walk together.

Call to Action: Subscribe to get the essays each week. Share this with someone who’s standing at their own gate.

Thanks for reading Idnck’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.