In this episode, I wish my brother SGT Steven DeLuzio a happy birthday. Today would have been his 35th birthday.
I also talk about what it means to have a purpose.
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Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast where we talk about issues affecting veterans after they get out of the military.
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I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio. And now, let’s get on with the show.
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning into the Drive On Podcast.
Today, I’m doing a special episode. See, today is February 25th and it would have been my brother Steven’s 35th birthday. More likely than not if he was still alive, we would have had some plans to go out to dinner or do something fun to celebrate the day. Since he’s no longer with us, I figured what better way to celebrate than to dedicate an episode to him.
Actually, if I’m being honest with who he was, we would have been doing something to celebrate the day for a few days now at least. I remember more than once he asked what we were doing to celebrate the “week of Steve”. The week of Steve would usually start the weekend before and end the weekend after his birthday. And if his birthday happened to fall on a weekend, he’d celebrate the week of Steve for two weeks. Of course he didn’t expect us to drop everything for a week to celebrate, but if you knew him he was a goofball and joked around like that.
It’s been 10 years since the last birthday he got to celebrate. At that time he was on his way to Afghanistan with his Vermont Army National Guard unit. I wonder if it would have changed how he celebrated that birthday if he knew that his would be a one way trip over there.
Back in episode 12, I did another episode where I talked about Steven and how he impacted my life. If you haven’t listened to that episode, go give it a listen too. It’ll fill in some gaps that I might leave out in this episode.
In that episode I talked about having a support system. People who are close to you. Close enough to recognize when you’re going through a tough time and can help you get through it. And if they’re not the right ones for the job, they can help you seek out the care you need.
All of that is really important. It led me to get the help I needed.
What I want to talk about in this episode is finding a purpose. When my I was told that my brother was killed, my commander at the time asked if I was going to do something stupid like hurt myself or others. It was a completely rational question to ask a man with a rifle and over 200 rounds of ammo who was just told some devastating news. But at the time, I thought “how could I do something like that?” I had a wife and a newborn at home. My parents just lost one of their sons, I couldn’t do something that would cause them to lose both of their kids.
At that moment, my family was my purpose.
After getting home, there were decisions that had to be made that no parent should have to make for their child. Funeral details, settling his estate’s a...
