In the second essay of his “Wilderness Memoir” series, Patrick Flood opens with a line from a Green Lantern eulogy — “I hope I mattered” — and traces it back through his own life: a childhood fascination with The Green Berets, a brother who told him he’d never live up to his talent, and the sudden loss of that brother before either of them could finish the argument.
Before the Beret
Flood traces his path to Special Forces back to a formative deployment in Qatar, where he first experienced the independence and trust that came with ambiguous, high-stakes problems — “A Message to Garcia made real.” A commanding officer’s offhand comment — that Flood wouldn’t have a joyful career as a conventional Army officer — pointed him toward Selection. He writes candidly about the vanity, insecurity, and grief tangled up in that decision, including the unfinished argument with his brother that stayed with him through the pain of Selection at Camp Mackall.
What the Beret Actually Cost
Flood is unflinching about the trade-offs: golf with his father and brother replaced by hours at the range, friendships and birthdays traded for deployments and training, none of it dramatic in the moment but adding up over years. He writes about the “loneliness of command” — decisions with no clean answer, made in real time, that have to be lived with afterward — and about watching good, thoughtful men broken by exactly that weight.
Taking It Off
The essay’s emotional center is the transition out of the uniform — not a single moment, but a slow unraveling of certainty. Flood recalls a conversation with General John Campbell in Afghanistan, who told him and his sergeant major to remember their families, because “the Army wasn’t going to be at our funerals.” Flood writes about losing the clear measurements that used to define whether a day mattered — mission accomplished, men home, problem solved — and not finding anything that replaces them cleanly in civilian life.
Finding What’s Next
The piece closes on his brother, the marathon Flood ran alone years after his brother said he never would, and a quiet hope that he might “finish that run” by someday walking a golf course with his own son — not for a mission, but simply because his son will need his father, not a Green Beret.
Read the full essay, “I Hope I Mattered,” on LinkedIn →
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-hope-mattered-patrick-flood-vufrc/
