Editorial

A Letter to the Only Man Who Ever Broke My Heart: Tim Kennedy

BY Benjamin Reed

A U.S. Army veteran reflects on hero worship, disappointment, and integrity inside modern warrior culture.

Tim Kennedy during a training session, reflecting on his military service and life beyond combat. Image Credit: TODAY.com

I always wanted to be a Green Beret.

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That’s not a romantic statement. It’s just a fact about who I was for a long time.

My uncle served two tours in Vietnam as a Green Beret officer. He later married the daughter of William P. Yarborough, the man most often credited with shaping modern American Special Forces. Yarborough took a loose concept and gave it discipline, purpose, and a strategic identity. Special Forces became something distinct; not just soldiers who could shoot and speak another language, but men expected to think, adapt, and operate in moral and political complexity.

I grew up knowing that history. I never assumed I was entitled to it.

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I joined the Army the way many people do when money is not the motivator. I was trying to prove something, or escape something, or both. I never believed I was built for Special Forces. I respected the work too much to pretend otherwise. I came close to that world, but I understood where the ceiling was.

Then my mother died by suicide.

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Soon after, my father’s cancer worsened. I was sent home on a compassionate reassignment. In 2011, instead of moving forward in my career, I found myself working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as cadre for the joint Harvard–MIT ROTC program. I was training future officers while my own life narrowed to hospital visits, paperwork, and grief. Whatever trajectory I thought I had dissolved quietly during that period.

That was the end of one ambition.

I went into contracting afterward. Kuwait, Afghanistan, Germany. It was work adjacent to war, demanding in its own way, but it wasn’t the thing I had once imagined. When that chapter closed, I committed seriously to martial arts. Not casually. Not performatively. It became a discipline I could measure myself against honestly. That path eventually took me to Ukraine.

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Somewhere along the way, Tim Kennedy became the person I measured myself against, whether I meant to or not.

He embodied two things I once wanted and never achieved: Special Forces and elite competitive fighting. Whatever our disagreements outside those realms, he represented a standard. A version of masculinity that appeared earned rather than advertised. I didn’t need him to be perfect. I needed him to be real.

At thirty-eight, I am no longer chasing those ambitions. I am at peace with the choices I made. That peace did not come from pretending those dreams never mattered. I sometimes imagine how I would have behaved if I had done what he did. I picture myself staring too long at a mirror with a green beret on. Or replaying a UFC walkout more times than necessary. Or tying a belt tighter than it needs to be. I’m honest enough to admit I would have overcompensated. Most men do. The military produces many virtues, but emotional balance is rarely one of them. I don’t need help telling stories about myself. My own life has already attracted more attention than I ever intended. So when I learned that Tim Kennedy had been dishonest about his record, I wasn’t angry. I was crushed. Everyone engages in some amount of mythmaking. Veterans are no exception. Most of it is harmless. Embellished stories told in bars. Exaggerations meant to entertain or deflect. This was different. The claims didn’t add up. Not in small ways. In ways that matter. I am not interested in prosecuting this online. I despise that culture. Veteran discourse on the internet has become cruel, theatrical, and obsessed with humiliation. I want no part of it. I also understand the backlash against what people call “vet bro culture.” Some of it is deserved. Performance without substance deserves skepticism. That said, I don’t believe the answer is silence. We do not live in a world where silence preserves integrity. Men and women who served should be allowed to speak, write, and reflect without being forced into either costume or confession. My uncle once told me he spent Vietnam eating good French food. Years later, he mentioned he had been somewhere in the orbit of MACV-SOG. That was all he ever said. He didn’t need to elaborate. His generation had different rules. Ours does not. So I keep asking myself the same question. Why did he do it? I don’t know. I suspect it has something to do with self-image and hunger that never quite shuts off. When external achievements stop filling whatever gap is underneath, some people start rewriting the past instead of confronting the present. Maybe that’s too charitable. What was said was not exaggeration. It was false. SOFREP exists to tell the stories of America’s warriors honestly. That matters, especially because most Americans will never do a fraction of what men like Tim Kennedy have done in service to their country. There is no value in dragging this out or turning it into spectacle. On a personal level, I am simply trying to understand why this happened. If readers have thoughts, they are welcome to share them. Civility is the minimum requirement. Tim, if you choose to respond, you should know that this is not an indictment of your character. Your apology is noted and appreciated. What I’m describing here is disappointment, not condemnation.
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