B. M. Lee - Author

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.

This photo almost makes me look like a runner.Almost.The truth is, I hate running.For the first part of almost every run...
09/06/2026

This photo almost makes me look like a runner.

Almost.

The truth is, I hate running.

For the first part of almost every run, I’m negotiating with myself about why I should stop. My ankles hurt. My knees hurt. My hips hurt. My lungs hurt. And occasionally my pride hurts because I remember what I used to be capable of and compare it to where I am now.

Then, somewhere around that first half mile, something changes.

My body and my mind seem to reach an agreement.

Yes, this is miserable.

We’re doing it anyway.

And eventually the noise starts to disappear.

There’s no yesterday to replay. No tomorrow to plan for. No list of things waiting for me when I get home.

There’s just the next step.

And then another.

That’s probably why I keep running.

Not because I enjoy it.

Because for a little while, I can trade the complicated discomforts of life for one very simple one.

Keep moving or stop.

That idea shows up in different forms throughout Between the Echoes. Sometimes the mind doesn’t need another answer. Sometimes it just needs something simple enough to bring it back to the present.

Running does that for me.

A controlled little dose of misery that somehow leaves my head quieter than when I started.

And when it’s over, it doesn’t really matter whether I ran half a mile or ten.

I did something I wanted to quit doing.

That feels like an accomplishment every time.

What’s something you voluntarily put yourself through, not because you enjoy the process, but because you like who you are when you come out the other side?

Have you ever thought you had a solid plan, only to have the ground literally collapse beneath your feet?I have.Turns ou...
09/04/2026

Have you ever thought you had a solid plan, only to have the ground literally collapse beneath your feet?

I have.

Turns out, it changes your schedule a little. 😂

When this sinkhole opened next to our house, there wasn't much time for debating what we wanted to do. The situation had changed. So the plan had to change with it.

And I've thought about that quite a bit since.

We spend a lot of our lives assuming there will be more time.

I'll start tomorrow.

I'll get in shape later.

I'll make the phone call next week.

I'll work on the marriage when things calm down.

I'll chase that goal when life isn't so busy.

I'll deal with that problem when I have to.

But sometimes tomorrow doesn't look anything like the version we planned for.

Sometimes the ground moves.

And when it does, we don't suddenly become disciplined, resilient, adaptable, or prepared. We fall back on whatever we've built before that moment arrived.

That's why we train today.

Not because we know what's coming.

Because we don't.

We build strong bodies. Strong minds. Strong relationships. Strong values. We learn to adapt, change direction, and keep moving when the original path disappears.

There have been plenty of times in my life when the plan didn't survive contact with reality. Some were considerably more serious than a hole in my backyard. Others only felt that way at the time.

But the lesson has remained remarkably consistent:

You don't have to know what's coming next. You just need to have built enough of yourself to meet it when it arrives.

That's part of why I keep coming back to these ideas in my writing. Valuing Echoes is largely about knowing what you're anchored to when everything around you starts moving.

Apparently sometimes the universe prefers a visual aid.

What are you putting off until tomorrow that you could start building today?

I can look at this picture nearly twenty years later and immediately see what's wrong with it.The damn pike on the guido...
09/02/2026

I can look at this picture nearly twenty years later and immediately see what's wrong with it.

The damn pike on the guidon isn't perfectly horizontal.

That's the Marine Corps for you.

I believe this was shortly after we returned from Afghanistan. The captain in front of me was, by every definition of the word, a motivator. Prior enlisted, infantry, Marine officer. The real deal.

And there I am behind him carrying the guidon.

I've been fortunate enough to do a lot of things in my life. I've deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. I've traveled around the world. I've experienced things that, looking back, probably make much better stories than walking across a patch of grass carrying a flag.

But I loved being the guidon bearer.

I still can't completely explain why.

There was just something about it.

Drill and ceremony can seem almost pointless from the outside. March here. Stand there. Dress right. Salute. Immediate obedience to orders. Do it again until everyone moves as one.

But the guidon was different.

It represented all of us.

The Marines who were standing there that day, the ones who had carried it before us, and the history we had inherited when we earned the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor.

For a little while, I got to be the Marine trusted to carry it.

Maybe that's why this picture still means so much to me.

Some of the things we're proudest of aren't necessarily our greatest accomplishments. Sometimes they're simply moments when we were trusted with something that mattered.

What's something you've done that probably wouldn't sound impressive to anyone else, but you're still damn proud of?

I’ve always been drawn to the horizon.My wife took this picture on our honeymoon in Yellowstone. I don’t remember what I...
08/31/2026

I’ve always been drawn to the horizon.

My wife took this picture on our honeymoon in Yellowstone. I don’t remember what I was thinking about when she took it. Looking at the picture now, I’m not sure I was thinking about much of anything.

Maybe that’s why I like it.

There’s a chapter in Between the Echoes called “Blue Enough to Forget.” In it, I wrote:

“Sometimes peace shows up without warning. Not in a big dramatic way, just in the sky. A color, a breath. It doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t try to. It just reminds you what it feels like when your mind isn’t racing. When you’re not unpacking the past or bracing for what’s next.

Just quiet.

Just you.

And for once, that’s enough.”

I wrote those words about a different place, but I think I’ve spent much of my life searching for the same thing.

I’ve found it looking across deserts, rivers, oceans, mountains, and sometimes just standing beside the water with nowhere else I needed to be.

Maybe that’s why the horizon always seems to call me back.

It doesn’t ask anything from you. It doesn’t need you to figure anything out.

Sometimes you can just stand there.

And sometimes, that’s enough.

Where do you go when you need the world to be quiet for a little while?

It’s been 15 years since this young motivator retired from the United States Marine Corps.Medical retirement, but retire...
08/30/2026

It’s been 15 years since this young motivator retired from the United States Marine Corps.

Medical retirement, but retirement nonetheless.

Looking at pictures like this now, it’s tempting to attach some profound meaning to everything. To pretend I understood all the lessons being taught or somehow knew which moments would still matter to me decades later.

I didn’t.

I was a teenager when I became a Marine and still in my early twenties when that chapter of my life ended. I wasn’t walking around Afghanistan or Iraq contemplating leadership, resilience, purpose, or any of the other things I write about today.

I was just living.

Trying to do my job well. Laughing with my friends. Being miserable together. Making mistakes. Occasionally making good decisions. Learning things without realizing I was learning them.

It took getting older to understand some of it.

Fifteen years later, lessons from those seven years still find their way into how I think about leadership, friendship, hardship, fatherhood, and probably most of what I write.

Some I've carried with me the entire time.

Others took a decade or more before I finally understood what they were trying to teach me.

And I'm sure there are a few I'm still too stubborn to figure out.

August 30 marks 15 years since I took off the uniform for the last time.

It’s been an interesting ride.

Funny how some of the most important lessons in life aren't recognized until years after the class is over.

I spent a good portion of my late teens and early twenties bouncing between Afghanistan, Iraq, and places somewhere in b...
08/28/2026

I spent a good portion of my late teens and early twenties bouncing between Afghanistan, Iraq, and places somewhere in between.

So naturally, what did I do in my thirties?

I went back.

Different country. Different purpose. And a very different version of me.

This photo was taken in Israel, standing on the Teaching Steps in Jerusalem.

Years earlier, I had experienced this part of the world almost entirely through the lens of a young Marine. Everything around me was filtered through the job in front of us. Where we were going. What we were doing. What was happening around us.

This time, I wasn't carrying a r***e.

I had the opportunity to slow down. To listen. To learn. To stand in places I'd read about for most of my life and think about the thousands of years of people, faith, conflict, triumph, loss, and ordinary life that existed there long before any of us arrived.

It put a lot into perspective.

We have a tendency to believe the version of the world we experience is simply the way the world is.

Then life gives us enough time and distance to realize we were only seeing it through the eyes of the person we were at that moment.

I couldn't go back and show that young Marine everything he didn't understand yet.

But I could come back as an older man and finally see some of it for myself.

Sometimes returning isn't about going backward.

It's about discovering how differently you see the same world after you've changed.

Have you ever returned to a place years later and realized the place wasn't what felt different?

You were.

Nothing says "training photo" quite like posing with a r***e that doesn't even have a magazine in it. 😂This was somewher...
08/26/2026

Nothing says "training photo" quite like posing with a r***e that doesn't even have a magazine in it. 😂

This was somewhere out at 29 Palms, California.

I couldn't tell you exactly what we were doing anymore. I remember it involved the AAVs, and judging by the photo, apparently our primary responsibility at this particular moment was being shuffled around in the back like misplaced luggage.

What I do remember is the heat.

29 Palms had a special way of making you feel like you'd opened an oven door and then climbed inside. Add body armor, gear, exhaust fumes, dust getting into absolutely everything, and a bunch of Marines crammed into armored vehicles, and you have all the ingredients for a wonderful day.

And somehow, we were having fun.

That's one of the strange things about looking through these old photos.

Some of the memories I look back on most fondly were absolutely miserable while they were happening.

We complained. We were hot. We were tired. We probably smelled terrible. And when there wasn't anything we could do about any of it, eventually we just started laughing.

Maybe that's why shared misery has a way of becoming such a good memory.

The miserable part eventually fades.

You remember the people who were miserable right there beside you.

For everyone who served, what's a training exercise or duty station you absolutely hated at the time but would give almost anything to experience with those same people one more time?

I have always loved this photo.Partly because it looks like we were about to drop the best... or worst boy band album of...
08/24/2026

I have always loved this photo.

Partly because it looks like we were about to drop the best... or worst boy band album of the early 2000's. 😂

Believe it or not, it wasn't staged. Just one of those moments where someone happened to have a camera at exactly the right time.

Four Marines standing in front of the windows, completely washed into silhouettes by the sunlight outside.

You can't see a single face.

But I can.

That's probably what strikes me most when I look at it now.

I remember the faces. I remember the voices. The personalities. The jokes. The things that irritated the hell out of me. The things that made us laugh. I remember who I trusted, who I could count on, and what it felt like simply having those guys around.

The camera captured four silhouettes.

My memory fills in everything else.

I think that's true of a lot of old photographs. Eventually, the picture itself becomes less important than everything surrounding it that only you can still see.

Twenty years later, I don't need the photograph to show me their faces.

I already know who's standing there.

What's an old photo you have that means far more to you than anyone else would understand just by looking at it?

Apparently I haven't been very good at mentioning this part. 😂Over the last few weeks, I've been sharing old photographs...
08/23/2026

Apparently I haven't been very good at mentioning this part. 😂

Over the last few weeks, I've been sharing old photographs, stories from the Marine Corps, lessons I've picked up along the way, and some of the things I find myself thinking about years later.

A few of these posts have traveled much farther than I ever expected, and I've had quite a few new people join the page because of them.

Then someone left a comment asking if I'd ever thought about writing a book.

Well... about that. 😂

I've actually published seven.

Some are fiction. Some deal with PTSD, values, leadership, purpose, and the things we carry with us long after an experience is over. And I've recently started working on a children's series built around some of those same ideas, just told very differently.

The funny part is that the posts you've been reading aren't separate from the books.

They're where a lot of the books came from.

A photograph triggers a memory. A memory turns into a question. Sometimes that question becomes a post. Sometimes I keep pulling on the thread and eventually realize there's a book hiding at the other end of it.

So, for everyone who's recently found this page, welcome.

Apparently I should introduce myself occasionally. 😂

I'm B. M. Lee. I write books.

Skilleddevelopment.com

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