Being in the military with a stutter
Content
Being in the military with a stutter I joined the military roughly 4 years ago. I was scared shitless to go to boot camp having a mild (when calm) to moderate (when stressed) stutter. Before I joined the military i was very self conscious about it but I could power through it and get my point across and have a regular social life. But i would hide it. A lot. When I got to boot camp I couldn’t do that. It came out worse than since I was little kid. Eventually I got through it but I got shit on a lot in boot camp and even in the fleet. When I got to the fleet my first qualification was to be a watchstander aka radio and pipes which is pretty much a PA system. Fuck. There was multiple times where I would try and avoid it but it caught up to me eventually where I was forced to do it. It was a good thing because I had to face my terrifying fear of stuttering on the radio and on the pipes. On one occasion I made a pipe and I stuttered the entire time and every chief and my xo and co came out and were like what the fuck was that. I inevitably had to tell them I had a stutter. (I kept my stutter under wraps for a few weeks) Surprisingly they were super cool about it. I got through it and eventually got to the point where I can talk on the radio if I stayed relaxed. I got a lot of shit about it but I made a lot of good friends and they were generally accepting of it and it made me a better person because of it. Now I realize that’s it’s not a huge deal because people do understand and most of they time they don’t mind that much. All in all the military has boosted my confidence a lot and that’s 90% of getting though life in general imo. Shit sucks and i have my bad days but now it’s just another bad day and it doesn’t really bother me that bad. Just my two cents and just wanted to share with some people!!!