My family asked me not to wear my uniform to my grandfather’s military tribute because it would embarrass them in front of the guests. An hour later a four-star general stepped up to the microphone and looked straight at the back row.

I let them think that.

I decided, somewhere around 2016, that if they wanted to know they could ask, and that I was not going to stand in my father’s kitchen and make a case for my own life to a man who was already looking at his phone.

That was a choice. It felt like pride and it was partly cowardice, and I have had to say that out loud to a counsellor at the Army’s expense.

My grandfather knew. He always asked. He is the only person in my family who has ever said the name of a single place I have been.

And when the commendation came through in the spring, it was Augustin I told. Nobody else.