What Combat Taught Me About Adversity (And the Only Proper Response)

My right scanner called "Missile launch, four o'clock."

I had seconds to respond to the SA-7 heat-seeking missile, fired at our MH-53 somewhere over Iraq. I didn't see it. I didn't have to. I trusted my crew. I punched flares, initiated evasive maneuvers, increased speed.

The missile missed by several hundred feet. Maybe more. Hard to say when you're focused on not becoming a fireball.

Then they fired a second one.

Same response. Flares, evasion, speed. It missed too.

My first thought after both missiles missed? Anger. Why are you shooting at me? I'm just doing my job. Of course, my job is to deliver twenty plus badass special operators to the back door of some very bad people. So, the anger was somewhat ironic.

After that? Relief. We're alive, but we still have four to five hours of flying ahead. Buckle up and get back to work.

That's external adversity. Circumstances beyond your control try to kill you, derail you, or stop you. You didn't cause it. You don't deserve it (totally). But you still have to deal with it.

In 26 years of flying and ten plus years trying to sell my writing, I've encountered adversity in three distinct forms. External: circumstances you can't control. Internal: consequences of your own choices. Imposed: others' decisions that block you for no good reason.

Each type feels different. Each type hurts differently.

But they all demand the same fundamental response: Adapt or quit.

Here's what I learned about making that choice.

External Adversity (When Circumstances Conspire)

External adversity is what happens when the universe hands you problems you didn't create.

It might be missiles in Iraq. Or it might be a mis-rigged rotor hub on an Mi-17 in Afghanistan that made the helicopter handle backwards from what it was supposed to do. A Huey engine that exploded, or even a nose gear strut that collapses into your flight controls.

None of that was my fault. But it was still my problem.

After landing the Mi-17 with improper rigging, I didn't want to fly again that day. I’d just safely landed a damaged aircraft, and my nerves were shot. I did anyway. Different student. Same mission. Because that's the job. It’s what we were trying to instill in our partners. You adapt to circumstances, solve problems you didn't create, and keep executing the mission.

In writing, external adversity looks like the pandemic shutting down Hollywood. I didn't cause a global pandemic. But my screenplays still needed a way forward.

I adapted. I turned them into novels. That wasn't my original plan. But circumstances forced the pivot, and the novels turned out better anyway.

External adversity doesn't ask for fairness. The helicopter doesn't care whose fault the malfunction is. The market doesn't care that you wrote a good screenplay.

Your only options: Solve it or crash.

Internal Adversity (When You're the Problem)

Sometimes you create your own problems.

In my debut novel Stealing Stealth, I had an idea for the opening chapter. I wanted to hide my protagonist's gender. It was such a clever little ruse, and something that made sense in the screenplay. I’d make readers assume the brilliant thief was male, then reveal in chapter three that Gabrielle Hyde is a woman.

I tried everything to make it work. Every adjective under the sun. Careful pronoun management. Clever misdirection.

The chapter didn't work. No matter how many times I tried, it ended the same.

I kept pushing anyway because I'm stubborn. I wanted that reveal to surprise readers. I was thinking more about my clever trick than their reading experience. Anyone who read the back cover would already know Gabrielle is a woman. Why was I trying so hard to force this square peg into a round hole?

Because I wanted it to work. And I didn't want to admit I was wrong.

That's internal adversity. Your own choices, your own stubbornness, your own mistakes creating problems you then have to solve.

Once I let go of the gender reveal gimmick, the chapter worked immediately. Gabrielle's voice came through. The opening hook landed better because readers could connect with her instead of deciphering pronouns. A clearer voice gave me a stronger chapter.

I'd wasted months defending a choice that hurt the book because I didn't want to admit I'd misjudged it.

Internal adversity is harder to face because you can't blame anyone else. You made the call. You own the consequences.

The temptation is to defend the choice, double down, insist you were right. The growth happens when you recognize your stubbornness created the problem and adapt anyway.

Imposed Adversity (When Others Block You)

After I graduated from the jet portion of pilot training, my Group Commander pulled me aside within minutes of the selection ceremony.

"You seem like a good officer," he said. "I have no idea why you've thrown your career away by choosing helicopters."

He was a full bird colonel. He believed what he was saying. Conventional wisdom in the Air Force held that helicopter pilots hit career ceilings, that jets were the path to command.

He was wrong. I eventually became the Air Force Chief of Undergraduate Flight Training. But that assessment still stung to a brand-new 2nd Lieutenant. That's imposed adversity. Someone else's decision or judgment blocking you for reasons that have nothing to do with your actual capability.

I've faced this in Hollywood too. Auditions for roles that seemed written for me. If you think of the classic military background, physical type, character description, then you would know it matched to me. I didn't get them. Sometimes because someone else was genuinely better. Sometimes because they wanted something completely different and hadn't realized it until they saw auditions.

That's imposed adversity. You're perfect for something. They say no anyway.

In publishing, it looked like agents and editors telling me, "This needs to be under 100,000 words, then we can talk." Not about quality. Not about story. Just the standard gatekeepers applying arbitrary rules and outdated genre expectations based on risk metrics.

My novel was 128,000 words. Cutting it to fit traditional publishing boxes would have gutted what made the work special.

So I adapted. I shed my preconceived notion of what it meant to be an author and realized the gatekeepers couldn't hold the line the way they could fifteen years ago.

Imposed adversity asks: Can you persist when the system doesn't recognize your value? Can you find another path when the front door is locked?

Sometimes the answer is finding a door nobody's guarding.

How This Shows Up in Fiction

In Arctic Fire, my protagonist Major Zoe Nichols faces all three types of adversity.

External: Her family dies in a car accident while she's deployed. She didn't cause it. She wasn't even there. But the grief still destroys her.

Internal: She chose to extend her deployment instead of going home. That choice haunts her. She lives with the weight of knowing her decisions led to her deepest fear.

Imposed: The homesteaders reject her. The system she trusted betrays her. Her friends sell her out. And she suffers deeply because of it.

Each adversity could break her. She spends most of the novel struggling with whether to adapt or quit. When she finally chooses adaptation, then she rises transformed. That resurrection works because we watched her face all three types of adversity first.

Characters who face adversity without flinching feel hollow. Characters who struggle and genuinely consider quitting because the weight is too much, those are the characters who feel real.

We see our own struggles in them. When they choose to get back up, we feel it as permission to do the same.

The Only Response That Matters

Adversity comes in three forms. But your response only comes in one question: How many times are you willing to get back up?

The missiles in Iraq. The Group Commander who told me I'd ruined my career. The agents who said my novels were too long. The gender reveal I stubbornly defended until I couldn't anymore.

Each challenged me. Each required the same choice: Adapt or quit.

I adapted. Sometimes that meant evasive maneuvers and flares. Sometimes that meant indie publishing when traditional said no. Sometimes it meant admitting I was wrong and rewriting the chapter.

The adversity didn't stop. I'm still facing it. Book launches, reviews, the constant challenge of writing something that matters. But each time I chose adaptation instead of quitting, I became more resilient.

We all get beaten. The universe hands us problems we didn't create. Our own choices blow up in our faces. Other people tell us no for reasons that have nothing to do with our capability.

Circumstance never asks our permission or cares about our feelings. But your response determines who you become.

Arctic Fire releases April 13, 2026. It's about a woman who gets knocked down by all three types of adversity and has to decide whether to get back up. I wrote it because I've faced the same question in cockpits, in publishing, and in life.

The answer is always the same: Adapt. Or quit.

What adversity are you facing right now? And more importantly, how many times are you willing to get back up? Let me know in the comments. I'm still learning myself.