This Father’s Day, many families will fire up the grill, hand out neckties or whiskey bottles, and celebrate the steady presence of the men who raised them. We honor the sacrifices dads make — their hard work, protective instincts, quiet love. But for many fathers, especially those who’ve served in uniform or carried other unseen burdens, the greatest gift might be something simple but rare: a moment of real understanding.

I was 24 years old when I led an infantry platoon into Iraq. We breached the berm on the Kuwaiti border and pushed into cities where the future of a war — and our own identities — was uncertain. When I came home, I moved into a career on Wall Street, grew my family, and tried to become the man I thought a father should be: strong, silent, dependable. But the weight I carried — the invisible injuries of war, the trauma of a home invasion, the slow unraveling of self — never quite left me. I tried to bury it. And for a while, I did.

But what gets buried finds its own way back to the surface. Sometimes in anger. Sometimes in avoidance. Sometimes in moments when your child looks at you, needing you to be fully present — and you realize you’re not even in the room emotionally.

I tell that story in "

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