Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.” It’s a line often used to celebrate resilience—but he didn’t stop there. The full quote warns: “But those that will not break it kills.”
We honor strength. But sometimes, survival means allowing ourselves to break—and learning how to rebuild.
In 2003, I led an infantry platoon into Iraq during the opening salvos of the war. We breached the berm on the Kuwaiti border, fought in battles that presaged a decades-long conflict, and came home with stories we didn’t yet know how to tell. But what surprised me most wasn’t the trauma of combat—it was the quiet collapse that came after.
I tell that story in Downriver: Memoir of a Warrior Poet, which traces not only the war I survived overseas but the one that followed me home: a fast-paced career on Wall Street, a home invasion that shattered my sense of safety, the breakdown of a marriage, and the slow, painful climb through counseling. It’s a story about moral injury, grief, and eventual healing. And though it moves through darkness, it ends with hope.
Because trauma doesn’t belong only to the battlefield.
PTSD isn’t just a military acronym. It’s a national challenge. And if we’re honest, we’ve all endured a quarter-century of trauma—whether we wore a uniform or not.
We lived through the devastation of 9/11 and the forever wars that followed. We faced the financial collapse of 2008, which drained life savings and shattered economic confidence. We lost loved ones during a global pandemic. We watched cities burn during riots. And today, we navigate a culture more anxious and divided than I’ve seen in my lifetime.
These aren’t just headlines. They leave scars. Some visible, some not.
Americans are anxious. But beneath that anxiety is exhaustion—and beneath that, something deeper: grief. Grief for a country that feels unfamiliar. For fractured communities. For dreams postponed or lost.
The same symptoms that haunt many combat veterans—hypervigilance, emotional numbness, mistrust—are increasingly present in schools, boardrooms, and family dinner tables. That’s not weakness. It’s a survival response to prolonged uncertainty and loss.
If PTSD is the residue of trauma, then America is carrying a full combat load.
Yet we rarely name it. We rarely stop to ask how these years have affected us—not just politically, but spiritually. We medicate symptoms, scroll through distractions, or shout into digital voids. But healing doesn’t happen by accident. It begins with truth and honesty.
I remember sitting across from my counselor in 2011, unsure whether I could speak. I had been trained to lead soldiers under fire, to brief investors under pressure, to keep everything under control. But I didn’t know how to say: I’m not okay. That moment—humbling, unsettling, liberating—was the beginning of something new.
And it’s a moment I believe America is overdue for.
We need to talk, not as factions, but as people who’ve each carried more than we let on.
What veterans have learned—sometimes the hard way—is that pushing through pain doesn’t make it disappear. It just buries it, until it leaks out as anger, avoidance, addiction, or broken relationships. But we’ve also learned that recovery is possible. With the right tools, support, and honesty, we can rebuild.
I wrote Downriver not just to process my own experience, but to extend a hand to those who’ve never worn a uniform—but feel just as worn down.
This month is PTSD Awareness Month. You’ll hear about veteran suicide and the urgent need for mental health access—and all of that matters. But let’s widen the lens. The moral wounds of our time—cultural, political, spiritual—aren’t confined to combat zones.
If there’s a silver lining to our shared suffering, it’s this: we’re not alone. Whether in a foxhole or a boardroom, a recovery group or a church pew, the path forward is the same: tell the truth, seek help, and walk together.
No stigma. No shame. Be willing to break—and to rebuild. Because, as I’ve learned, vulnerability is not the opposite of strength. It’s the foundation of it.
And maybe, as Leonard Cohen once wrote, the very places we break are where healing begins:
“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
We’ve all been downriver. The question is whether we’ll help one another find our way home.
Ryan McDermott is an Iraq War veteran, recipient of the Bronze Star medal, and author of the award-winning and critically-acclaimed book, Downriver: Memoir of a Warrior Poet.
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