Miles Away vs. Worlds Apart: Commuting vs. Deploying

Your Drive to Work (or work travel) Should Never Be Compared to a Deployment. Ever.

We’ve all complained about rush hour — someone in a lifted truck that cuts you off, the slow-moving line to get off the highway, or the unfortunate coffee spill at a red light. Annoying, yes. Potentially life-threatening? Not likely.

Now imagine your commute includes incoming rocket fire.

A deployment isn’t just “being away from home for a while.” It’s being removed from your entire life — your family, your comforts, your country — and placed into a high-risk foreign environment where your survival depends on luck, discipline, and constant vigilance. You sleep knowing anything could happen — and often does.

While you’re driving to your office, a soldier in Afghanistan might walk nine miles through mountainous terrain, in 100-degree heat, carrying a fully loaded pack and a weapon — because the convoy route is mined.

While you're listening to a podcast, they’re hearing the dull thud of mortar rounds or the whine of medevac helicopters.

Deployments alter the brain. The body. The soul.

And when it’s all over, there is no soft landing. You come home with a duffel bag and memories that don’t match what’s happening in the grocery store aisle. There’s no transition plan that fully prepares you for the stares, the silence, or the stereotypes.

So the next time someone tells a veteran, “Yeah, man, I could never do what you did — I can barely handle my commute,” please, for the love of all things honorable, resist the urge to respond with something actionable.

Because the gulf between worlds cannot be measured in miles.