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Faulking Around - Dec 17, 2005 - Printable Version
- Christmas Combat
by Down The Middle
I don't like to talk about it, much. It was a bad time for me...as I'm sure, it was for everyone there. I'd really just like to forget about it but the memories never go away. Some people seem to handle it, at least on the surface...but many people end up suppressing them by drinking too much or doing drugs. I know that sounds bad...but believe me, the reality is overwhelming. And there's nothing glorious about it, you know. Just endless periods of boredom punctuated by brief moments of absolute terror. I suppose it's always like that...but I really can't tell you some of the things I saw. Seemingly good people becoming totally void of any feeling for their fellow man.....but it was kill or be killed, so who could blame them? Most of them just did what they had to do, like me. I didn't have anything against them...but when they're coming right at you, what can you do?
The Christmas season makes it all that much harder. Not just being away but also thinking about peace on Earth when there's nothing but hatred around you. I suppose, I never really had the instinct...that aggressive nature that some have...but you have to survive. That's all there is, you know? Get through it alive and get back home. That's all that really counts, in the end.
If you do make it back, don't be surprised if folks act a little differently around you. It's not that they mean to or even want to...they just don't know what to say. They know you've been through a nightmare because they can see it on your face...that "thousand yard stare". I suppose, that's the giveaway. They know you've seen too much by how you "look through" everything, as if your mind is three thousand miles away...and I suppose it is.
You relive it every day and then, you dream about it at night. Time can dull the pain but only death can take it away. If you live to be a hundred, you'll never forget it and life will never be the same. I think that's why some do go back. Being there has become their "normal".
Would I go, again? I don't know. Every day, I pray that I'm not called upon. There is the duty and I guess someone's got to do it but with what I know now, I'm really not sure I could handle it. It's one thing to walk in the first time, innocent and Gung ho but having been there and having seen the worst of humanity, I just don't know anymore. Maybe it's like they said about the Nam, "If you're going to get it, it's better to get it in the first days so you don't have to suffer as much".
All I can tell you is, you'll never be the same. You'll never look at people the way you once did and you'll never feel the same about yourself, either. It doesn't matter whether you believed in it or not. It doesn't matter that you only did what you had to do. You'll carry the shame for the rest of your life.
Here at Christmas time, I can't help but ask myself, "Is this what Jesus would want of us"? I don't think so...and the more I think about it, the more I know that I just can't do it anymore. It's against everything I believe in and I'd rather do anything than go back there.
So, put me in the stockade. Stand me up against a wall. I don't care. Just don't make me go back to Wal-Mart!!!
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