First day in the barracks, I strip down for the shower and the jokes start flying.

“Yo, what’s with My Little Pony over here?” one guy cackles.

Another whistles. “Didn’t know we were enlisting preschoolers.”

It’s on my ribcage—pastel pink, wings flared, one front hoof raised like it’s mid-prance. It does look cartoonish. I get it. I don’t explain. Just towel off and walk away.

But the teasing doesn’t stop.

Drills, PT, late-night cleaning rotations—it always comes back to the damn unicorn.

“Did it come with glitter?”

“Bet it farts rainbows.”

“Your boyfriend pick it out for you?”

I almost punch someone the night they draw one on the whiteboard above my bunk. Instead, I just erase it. Quiet. Fast.

Because here’s what no one knows.

That summer, three years ago, my daughter Niva begged for a unicorn birthday. She was six. We had it all—horn party hats, sparkle cupcakes, her name written in clouds on the wall. She danced for two straight hours in a tutu with wings.

She didn’t make it to seven.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Six months start to finish.
On her last good day, I asked her what tattoo I should get.
She traced the unicorn on her bedsheet with a crayon and said, “This one, but make it fly.”
I brought that drawing to the artist. Didn’t change a line.

So yeah, I let them laugh.
Until tonight.

We’re at the canteen when someone pulls out a Sharpie and offers to “add a rainbow.” I finally snap. Push back from the table, shirt half-lifted, finger on the wing.

“She drew this the week before she died.”

Everything freezes. Even the guy with the Sharpie stares like he’s seen a ghost. I don’t know what they expected me to say—but it sure as hell wasn’t that.

I finish my food in silence, walk out before anyone can say a word. My hands are shaking. I haven’t said her name out loud at base. Not once. I didn’t think I ever would.

Next morning, the unicorn jokes are gone. Completely. No more sketching on the board, no more remarks during drills. In fact, people start treating me a little different.

One of the guys, a stocky Guatemalan named Romel, finds me at the gym. He doesn’t say much—just hands me his water bottle and mutters, “Sorry, man. I didn’t know.” I nod. That’s enough.

A week later, I come back from a four-day field op and there’s something new taped inside my locker. It’s a small crayon drawing—rough, childlike—of a unicorn with flames coming out of its nostrils. At the bottom it says, “Fighting Unicorn Squad.”

No signature. No explanation. But I know it wasn’t meant to mock. I laugh for the first time in a while. That night, I tape it above my bed.

The weird thing is, the more I start talking about Niva—even just little pieces—the more people start opening up too. Turns out, a lot of these tough guys have their own stories. Pain they don’t talk about.

Dimitri, our medic, tells me his sister died of a seizure when they were kids. She was five.
Manuel hasn’t spoken to his daughter in eight years. Divorce messed everything up.
Even Sergeant Petrowski, who yells like it’s a sport, quietly tells me one night that he carries a photo of his son in his boot—kid he hasn’t seen since Afghanistan, 2009.

I never expected grief to be a bridge. But somehow it becomes one.

Then comes the twist I didn’t see coming.

Midway through the year, we’re deployed for a humanitarian mission after a typhoon hits the Philippines. It’s hot, muddy, chaotic. We’re clearing debris, setting up temporary housing, distributing food. It’s hard, sweaty work.

We stop in a small village, and while the others are offloading boxes, I see this little girl—maybe five years old—just standing there in torn pajamas, clutching a plastic unicorn.

She stares at me like I’m made of fire.

I crouch down, smile, point to the unicorn on her toy. Then I lift my shirt a little and show her mine. Her eyes go wide. She grabs my hand and drags me to her mother.

Turns out, they lost everything in the storm. Her name is Carys. Her unicorn’s name? Niva.

I damn near choke when I hear that.

We stay in that village for two more days. I give her one of my spare T-shirts, which swallows her whole. She wears it like a dress. Keeps calling me “soldier unicorn.” I don’t correct her.

Before we leave, she gives me a folded piece of paper. It’s another unicorn drawing. Messy, scribbled, but smiling. Wings open wide.

That night, back at camp, I take a photo of it and send it to my ex-wife. We haven’t spoken in almost a year, not since the court date where we finalized the split. But she responds instantly.

“She’d love that,” she writes.

A few more texts follow. Then a phone call. Two hours later, we’re crying together for the first time since the funeral.

I think, maybe, the unicorn wasn’t just for Niva.
Maybe it was for me too.

Months roll by. Deployment ends. We rotate back stateside. I’ve changed. I know it. I think others notice too.

I sign up for grief support. Start seeing a therapist on base. Small steps, but big ones for me. I even start running with Romel and Manuel on weekends—something I would’ve blown off before.

Then, one day, something else happens. I get called into the CO’s office. No idea why.

Turns out, Sergeant Petrowski put my name in for a leadership award. Not for combat. For morale. He wrote a whole letter about how I turned “mockery into unity” and helped bring the team together.

I get choked up reading it. I never even knew he noticed.

At the award ceremony, I wear a button-down that barely hides the tattoo. But afterward, a woman comes up to me—short hair, civilian clothes, nervous smile. Says her son just started boot camp. She shows me a photo. He’s got a unicorn tattoo too. She says, “He got it for his little sister. She passed last year. He heard about you. Said it helped him feel less alone.”

I go still.

Word travels fast, I guess.

I start getting messages online. Soldiers, moms, widows, even a teenage girl from Iowa who says she has a matching unicorn on her wrist for her best friend who died in a car crash. People keep saying the same thing:

“Thank you for not hiding it.”

And honestly? That hits harder than any medal ever could.

Last month, I got a package in the mail. No return address. Inside is a tiny plush unicorn, hand-stitched, with “Niva’s Wings” sewn on the saddle. There’s a note: “For the little girl who made the soldier stronger.”

I keep it on my dresser now. Next to her photo.

Sometimes I still get questions about the tattoo. Random people at the gym, on base, even the grocery store.
They’ll ask, “What’s the story behind that?”
And these days, I don’t flinch.
I smile.
And I tell them.
Every time.

Because here’s the truth: You don’t always get to choose the pain life hands you. But you can choose what you carry forward—and how you carry it.

For me, it’s a winged unicorn.
Drawn in crayon.
By the fiercest six-year-old I’ve ever known.

If you’ve got something that reminds you of someone you lost, wear it loud. Tattoos, necklaces, songs, stickers on your car—I don’t care what it is. Let people talk. Let them wonder.

Because the real strength? It’s in remembering.
Loving loud.
And not letting the world shame you for it.

Thanks for reading. If this touched you, give it a like or share it with someone who needs to hear it. You never know who’s carrying their own invisible unicorn.