// the short version

About

I'm Michael D. Connell Jr. Disabled veteran and a developer who got to software later than most. I served in the [FILL: branch + years of service]. When that ended, the identity that came with it ended too, and nobody hands you a replacement. You either drift or you build one.

I built one. I learned to build software — [FILL: how the learning happened]. It wasn't a career move at first. It was evidence: daily proof that I could still learn something hard, finish it, and make it run.

The evidence stacked up. It became Life Re:Scripted, the newsletter I founded, and The Phoenix Protocol, the book I wrote about the system underneath all of it. The arc is simple: I rebuilt an identity by building things. This site is where the building shows.

// the timeline

How it actually went

  1. [FILL: years of service]

    Service

    [FILL: branch, role, duty stations — whatever belongs in public.] The uniform gave me an identity I would carry for years — and eventually have to rebuild without.

  2. [FILL: year]

    Medical retirement and the exit

    The short, public version: I left with a disability and without a plan for who came next. [FILL: whatever you want to share about the transition out.]

  3. [FILL: year]

    Deciding to learn to code

    Code doesn't care how old you are or where you've been. It runs or it doesn't — and that made it the right kind of evidence. [FILL: why software, and what the learning path actually looked like.]

  4. [FILL: year]

    Founding Life Re:Scripted

    A newsletter written by a disabled veteran for anyone in the middle of the same identity rebuild. Reclaim. Rebuild. Reignite.

  5. September 2026

    The Phoenix Protocol

    My first book: fifteen chapters and an oath, about 27,000 words, built on one idea — you don't need motivation, you need a system that runs when motivation doesn't. In beta now; launching this fall.

  6. 2026

    This site

    mdc-techvet.dev is the workshop and the record: portfolio, blog, and proof of work in one place. I build in public because evidence beats claims.

// what I'm building toward

Everything here points in one direction: working tools for people who are functioning but fraying — the ones rebuilding who they are without an audience and without a manual. The book carries the system. Life Re:Scripted delivers it, one issue at a time. This site documents the work: the code, the writing, and what it actually costs to rebuild late and mean it. If any of it holds a door open for you, it's doing its job.

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