Coffee and Chaos - Why Veterans Love the Morning Ritual

If you want to understand a veteran, you must first understand their relationship with the ritual. It is not a casual fling, but a deep, spiritual, and sometimes dysfunctional bond forged in the fires of 0400 wakeups, sleep-deprived guard shifts, and mind-numbing PowerPoint briefs. For the average civilian, coffee is a pleasant morning energy starter. For a veteran, it is non-negotiable, mission-critical fuel, the liquid equivalent of a pre-mission inspection, checking your lights, kicking the tires on your own sanity, and making sure your brain hasn’t decided to go AWOL.

Taming Chaos

Morning doesn’t begin; it assaults you. It’s a violent eruption of fluorescent lights, the scream of a First Sergeant’s voice, or the soul-crushing beep of a G-Shock alarm set for a time that shouldn't technically exist. The world is chaos. Coffee is the first act of defiance, the easy step between alertness and the felony certainly waiting if you crack that fourth 5 Hour Energy before the rising of the sun. It is the one singular moment of peace and personal control before the uniform goes on, and the day’s madness begins. Consequently, this moment is so universally understood that even the angry First Sergeant experiences the same one regularly. You drink it to achieve a state of "minimum operational effectiveness" before you’re expected to count 40 Marines in the dark or inventory $3 million worth of serialized gear.

Donning the Armor

Everyone has a different gear loadout, but we all have one. Some form of tool, wallet, watch, sunglasses, keys… The EDC setup is how one acquires a form of control over the environment, using preparedness to fill the cracks in the day caused by the new Lieutenant, everyone’s complaints about the chow hall, or the extra hours added to the duty day at the last minute for something that could have been done before chow. Even more ubiquitous than the setup is that everyone has one, and everyone’s the best. Sometimes the disagreements over who has the better folding blade, the Gerber with the most useful bits, or the pistol that conceals the best are more important to the morning boot up sequence than the coffee is.

Completing the Breakfast Jutsu

This part of the ritual supplies the fuel to withstand the day. For some it is the breakfast tacos ordered at the gas station on the way to work, for others it is hiding the right MRE where the rats won’t find it. When you’re so motivated you eat the hidden MRE while driving to work, consider counselling. In the field, this ritual becomes even more primal. The hiss of the Jetboil is a beacon of hope, as sharing a pot of hot bullion to liven up the Wheat Bread is a gesture of profound trust. It doesn't matter that it tastes like boiled bootlaces and despair; It’s hot, it has… flavor… and the misery is spread loaded between the lot of you. That shared experience of bracing for the day with a fellow sufferer is a form of camaraderie that civilians, with their gently acquired lattes, will never truly know. Unless we let the baristas kick it up a notch, which should be encouraged.

The Ritual Endures

This habit doesn’t fade when a veteran transitions out; if anything, it gets stronger. The piece of your time in service that can so easily adapt itself to any situation keeps a baseline continuity, so making this impossible thing happen isn’t that much different from that impossible thing you’ve already accomplished with no sleep and a 23-year-old screaming at you. The ritual is the subtle reminder that tomorrow is still coming, as it always has.

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