B. M. Lee - Author

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Dade City, FL
B. M. Lee - Author

Marine Corps veteran and author exploring the quiet battles we carry long after the noise fades. Marine Corps veteran. Speaker. Coach. If it echoes, it matters.

I write stories shaped by trauma, loyalty, and the echoes that follow us home; fiction and nonfiction that blur the line between shadow and silence. Author of Between the Echoes: The Reality of PTSD – an honest reflection of life after service, the weight we carry, and the moments that shape us in silence. Advocate for trauma-informed leadership and real conversations around mental health. I write from experience—messy, unpolished, and real.

09/20/2026

As our little community here continues to grow, and so many of you continue inviting friends to follow the page, I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you and remind everyone where you can find my books.

If you're interested in checking out any of my work, there are quite a few options. My books are available through my website, Etsy, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Target, and several other retailers. If you're local, you can always reach out to me directly, or find me at one of the local events I attend and pick up a copy from me personally.

Amazon is probably the quickest and easiest option if you just want a copy delivered to your door. Some of the other retailers and print partners, as well as the copies I order directly for events, tend to have slightly different print and finish quality depending on the book. That's not a knock against Amazon at all. For the price and speed, they do a fantastic job. I just like giving people options.

And since I've been asked before: no, I have not finished any of the audiobooks yet. 😂 There's no exciting reason for that other than... life.

I'm about a third of the way through recording Chasing Echoes, and one of these days I promise I'll actually finish it. When I do, I'll make sure everyone knows.

Most importantly, thank you to everyone who continues to read, follow along, comment, like, share, and invite others to the page. Whether you've bought every book, picked up one, or simply enjoy the things I post here, I genuinely appreciate the support.

There are plenty more stories and ideas still to come.

SkilledDevelopment.com/author

09/20/2026

We talk a lot about finding our people.

The ones we can depend on. The ones who show up when things go sideways. The ones who stand beside us when we need them.

It's something I write about in The Forgotten Shield Wall, and there's certainly no shortage of books, videos, and inspirational quotes telling us what those people are supposed to look like.

Then there's this guy.

While digging through terabytes of pictures I've collected over the years, I came across this one. I'm fairly certain he would prefer I use almost any other photo of him.

I will not. 😂

Because somehow I think this one makes the point better.

I've called this guy at 1 a.m. I've called him at the last minute. I've asked for help under circumstances where a perfectly reasonable response would have been, “Absolutely not.”

He shows up.

No big speech. No questions about what he's getting out of it. No dramatic declaration about loyalty or friendship. He just answers the call.

And apparently does it looking like he wandered away from a 1960s music festival. 😂

Reliability doesn't always look the way we imagine it will.

Sometimes the people who become part of our shield wall aren't the loudest, toughest, or most impressive people in the room. They're simply the ones who have demonstrated, time and again, that when you need them, they'll be there.

Are there better pictures of him?

Countless.

Am I using one of them?

Absolutely not.

Who is the person in your life others might underestimate, but you know will answer the call every single time?

09/18/2026

I’ve always liked this picture, and I’m not entirely sure why.

If you didn’t know the story behind it, there isn’t much here.

A pair of boots. The butt of an M16A2 service rifle. Pieces of dog tags tucked into the boots.

Maybe you’d assume military. Maybe combat arms. Beyond that, there really isn’t much to go on.

This was me sitting outside my fighting hole in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan.

I don't even know if I took the picture intentionally. I may have just pointed the camera down and clicked the button.

Yes, a camera. For those of you young enough to wonder what we used before every phone had three of them. 😂

But I look at this picture now and see everything that isn't in it.

You don't see the miles walked through those mountains, five days of food and water on my back, the ammunition, weapons, and everything else we carried. You don't see being so exhausted hiking out of the mountains that I'd fall asleep while walking, start to fall, wake up somewhere on the way down, catch myself, and keep moving.

You don't see how badly my feet hurt. You don't see the weight, the exhaustion. You don't see any of it.

It's just a pair of dirty boots.

Nearly twenty years later, I can look at this picture and practically feel those boots again. My feet ache just thinking about it, and somehow, at the exact same time, it puts a grin on my face.

Funny what stays with you.

Do you have a picture like this? One that probably means nothing to anyone else, but the second you see it, an entire memory comes rushing back?

09/16/2026

“But every one of us walks beside the echo of something.

And if you listen long enough, you might hear your own.”

Those were the closing lines of the opening poem in Between the Echoes. When I wrote them, I wasn’t just thinking about veterans, trauma, or even myself. I was thinking about all of us.

We all carry echoes. Some are sharp and painful, some are faint and almost tender, but none of them really leave us. They’re the reminders of what we’ve walked through, the people we’ve lost, the mistakes we’ve made, the moments we can’t forget, even if we try.

For me, part of the struggle has been wrestling with a kind of imposter syndrome. I hear the stories of Tier 1 guys, the ones whose experiences sound bigger, louder, more extreme and I think, why do I carry these demons when my story doesn’t look like theirs? But echoes don’t care about comparison. Pain doesn’t come with a measuring stick. We each carry what we carry, and it shapes us in ways no one else can define.

Writing Between the Echoes forced me to face that. Some of my echoes roared so loud I couldn’t ignore them. Others whispered quietly in the background, only surfacing when I slowed down enough to listen. And even now, years later, they still walk with me.

This isn’t just my story, though. It isn’t just a veteran story. It’s human. Every one of us has echoes that follow us, whether we acknowledge them or not. And sometimes, the most powerful thing we can do is stop pretending they aren’t there and instead, listen.

Because if you listen long enough, you might hear your own.

What echoes do you carry?

09/15/2026

I came across this picture today and thought, “Man, I look pretty.”

That’s it.

There’s no deeper meaning here. No lesson about resilience. No discussion about leadership, values, PTSD, finding your purpose, or overcoming adversity.

I’m not going to somehow connect the window to looking toward the future. I’m not going to tell you the black and white represents the complexity of life. And I refuse to turn sitting on a toy chest into a metaphor for carrying the weight of the past.

Sometimes self-care is looking at an old picture of yourself and thinking, “Yep. Nailed it.”

So today, we’re going with that.

I looked pretty. 😂

Carry on.

09/14/2026

This photo makes me laugh.

A friend and I getting ready for a paintball tournament years ago.

The guys on this team were all friends. We genuinely liked each other. There wasn't some big personality feud behind the scenes.

We were also terrible as a team.

In fact, I believe we took dead last in this tournament. 😂

Not because we lacked individual skill. We just never figured out how to become a unit.

Our strengths didn't complement each other. Our personalities approached competition differently. Communication broke down. Instead of naturally working together, we kept trying to force the pieces to fit.

We were trying to force a shield wall to form.

There's an important distinction here, especially for anyone reading this from a military background.

In the military, you don't get to decide that the guy beside you isn't your type of person and find somebody else.

You learn to work together.

You train together. You suffer together. You accomplish things together. You operate under the same standards and toward the same mission. Somewhere in those shared experiences, a bond can form between people who might never have become friends otherwise.

That's part of what makes those formations different.

But most of life doesn't work that way.

A group of friends doesn't automatically make a team.

A collection of talented people doesn't automatically create cohesion.

And liking the people around you doesn't necessarily mean you're standing in the right formation.

Not every group of good people makes a good shield wall.

Sometimes nobody is wrong.

Nobody needs to be the villain.

The formation simply doesn't work.

That's something I've been thinking about while writing The Forgotten Shield Wall. We talk a lot about loyalty and holding the line. Those things matter.

But wisdom also means recognizing which lines are actually yours to hold.

We eventually went our separate ways as a team. Some of us played elsewhere. We remained friends.

Maybe that's the lesson I didn't understand at the time:

You don't have to dislike someone to realize you don't belong in the same formation.

Have you ever tried to force yourself to fit into a team, organization, or group simply because you liked the people in it?

09/13/2026

When I wrote Not My Flag to Raise in Between the Echoes: The Reality of PTSD, it wasn’t just about the flag. It was about the moment.

On the surface, it probably looked simple: a group of tourists on the Sea of Galilee, soaking it all in, when someone suggested I should be the one to raise the flag. But what no one could see and what I tried to capture in the echo was the weight I carried into that silence.

I wasn’t on that boat to collect photos or souvenirs. I wasn’t there to check off a pilgrimage. I was there because of a promise I had made to God in one of the most desperate seasons of my life. That trip wasn’t about sightseeing. It was about obedience. It was about following through.

So when that flag came out, it pulled me in two directions at once. For the others, it was an honor. A symbol. Something to celebrate. For me, it brought memories I didn’t talk about, shadows that travel with me whether I want them to or not.

And in that moment, the flag didn’t belong. Not there. Not on those waters.

What mattered to me was the silence. The stillness of the sea. The reminder of faith that doesn’t shout, but waits. The echo of a promise kept not by me, but by God.

That’s what I wanted to remember. That’s why I said no.

The echo in the book is the story. This what I’ve shared here is the weight behind it. And maybe that’s the lesson I’m still learning: not everything needs to be explained in the moment.

Sometimes the deeper meaning only comes when you sit with it long enough.

What about you? What moments in your life weren’t really about the symbol, but about the silence? The ones where what mattered most wasn’t what people saw, but what you carried with you when no one else was looking.

09/12/2026

In some of my echoes, I’ve referenced things like “shifting my grip” or “the mat.” Those words didn’t just come out of thin air. They’re drawn from my journey in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

I’ll be honest: it wasn’t easy at the start. I remember sitting in the parking lot before class, giving myself a pep talk just to walk through the door. Part of me wondered if I belonged there at all, if I could handle the pressure of being pushed physically and mentally in a room full of people who seemed more capable, more confident.

But something happened over time.

The mat became more than just a place to train. It became a mirror. Every roll revealed the tension I carried, the fears I avoided, and the small victories I didn’t give myself credit for. I learned that sometimes progress isn’t about winning , it’s about surviving one more round, shifting your grip, finding your breath, and trying again.

Now, I find myself looking forward to the next session. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s honest. Jiu-Jitsu strips away the noise and leaves you face to face with yourself. And for me, that’s been one of the most healing parts of the journey.

I can’t say enough good things about it. BJJ has given me a new language to describe the battles I still fight internally, and in turn, it’s given me new ways to write about them.

The echoes I carry haven’t disappeared, but the mat has taught me something vital: you don’t always have to silence them. Sometimes, you just have to shift your grip and keep moving.

What about you? Where’s the “mat” in your life, the place that strips away the noise and leaves you face to face with yourself?

09/11/2026

September 11, 2001.

I was in tenth grade, sitting in English class when the news started coming in.

Like most people who were old enough to remember that day, I can still picture where I was. What I remember most, though, is how strangely normal it felt to me at the time.

I watched what was happening, but I don't remember being scared. I don't remember some sudden realization that the world had changed. It was significant, obviously, but it was also happening hundreds of miles away to people I didn't know.

I was already planning to join the Marine Corps. I'd already imagined going off to war someday. Even as a teenager, I understood that every generation seemed to have its war.

I just didn't know what ours would look like yet.

That's probably the part that stands out to me 25 years later.

September 11th didn't make me join the Marine Corps. There wasn't some movie moment where I watched the towers fall and decided I was going to enlist. That decision was already being made.

And yet, sitting in that classroom, I was watching something that would become part of the backdrop of the next decade of my life without having any idea what that meant.

Afghanistan wasn't real to me yet.

Iraq wasn't real to me yet.

Neither were the people I'd meet, the people we'd lose, the experiences I'd carry home, or the person I'd eventually become.

At the time, I was just the kid in the back of this picture.

(Dan, apparently, had already seen the future.) 😂

I've written a lot in Between the Echoes about the strange way experiences stay with us. Sometimes the significance of a moment isn't found in the moment itself. Sometimes you have to live another five, ten, or twenty-five years before you can look backward and understand where it fits.

September 11th is one of those days for me.

Not the day that decided my future.

Just a day that became much more connected to that future than the kid sitting in English class could have known.

Where were you on September 11th?

Did you understand the significance of it then, or did that come later?

And did it change the trajectory of your life?

09/10/2026

There are moments when nothing obvious is wrong, and yet your body reacts like something is. You’re sitting at the table, driving home, or lying in bed, and suddenly your mind starts replaying something you said or did. Maybe it was a conversation that felt awkward. Maybe it was a decision you’re second-guessing.

Then the thoughts start stacking.

Maybe I messed that up.
Maybe I’m not as capable as they think.
Maybe they’re going to figure out I don’t belong here.

For some people, that’s imposter syndrome. For others, especially those with trauma in their background, it goes deeper. Anxiety isn’t just about performance. It’s tied to guilt, shame, and old experiences that trained your nervous system to stay alert.

Here’s something I’ve had to learn the hard way: your nervous system doesn’t always know the difference between a real threat and a remembered one.

When anxiety spikes, your body reacts as if something is happening right now. Heart rate increases. Muscles tighten. Thoughts accelerate. But most of the time, there is no immediate danger. The reaction is internal, not external.

So here’s something simple to try.

Pause for a moment and take one slow breath in through your nose. Hold it for four seconds. Then exhale slowly. Do that once or twice.

Then ask yourself a direct question:
What is actually happening right now?

Not five minutes ago. Not five years ago. Right now.

Usually the answer is surprisingly ordinary. You’re sitting in your house. You’re at your desk. You’re alone in your car. No one is attacking you. No one is confronting you. There is no immediate threat.

Anxiety tends to live in imagined futures. Shame tends to live in replayed pasts. Grounding pulls you back to the present.

And in the present, more often than not, you’re safe.

This doesn’t erase trauma. It doesn’t solve deeper wounds. But it can interrupt the spiral long enough to calm your body and regain clarity. You don’t have to win an argument with your anxiety. You just have to slow your nervous system down enough to stop feeding it.

The next time anxiety starts telling you a story about who you are or what you did wrong, don’t try to outthink it.

Pause.
Breathe.
Ask what is actually happening right now.

Start there.
_________________________________________________________

If this resonates, I explore these patterns more deeply in Between the Echoes: The Reality of PTSD and its companion workbook. Both were written for people learning how to separate memory from present reality and regain steady ground when the mind starts running ahead.

You’re not broken. Your nervous system learned to survive. Now it’s learning how to rest.

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https://www.skilleddevelopment.com/author, https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/56069257.Brent_M_Lee, https://www.insta

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