Personal
I was watching the final epsiode of MASH the other night and I had a sort of catharsis. The final epsiode, besides saying goodbye to all the characters, involved Hawkeye in a hospital for what we call “Combat Stress” these days. He had been in surgery and gone off the deep end. He had become impatient, irritable, and angry at everything. He had been having a recurrent dream involving his friends, wounded soldiers, and a Korean lady killing a chicken that changed into a baby as soon as it had been killed.
I have seen that episode about 100 times, but from this side of an Iraq deployment, it was very different. I could relate to where Hawkeye was coming from in a way that I couldn’t before. I have noticed impatience and irritability in myself since returning from the war, although not to the degree that was reflected in the show. I have had my share of unusual dreams (I won’t call them nightmares or “bad dreams"), and I experience first hand how these things can affect you in daily life. It was kind of like watching a version of me that could have been had my experience in Iraq been just a bit different.
Hawkeye was able to get over it by crying about the dream and talking it out in a few days. This is something we know not to be true now. It takes years to “get past” such heavy trauma as the characters in MASH saw, and for most of us in the “new generation” of combat vets, we know that our experiences will affect us in some way for the rest of our lives. Also, the military establishment now realizes the effects combat stress and PTSD can have on the force and society and they take it a lot more seriously than they did in the past. For that we are all grateful.
In the end, I guess I realized how the war changed me internally for the first time, and that was something I hadn’t really thought about. I had glanced by it a few times in how different we were as a group and how my personality had changed at work, but I hadn’t really thought about the deep, psyche level changes that had occurred and how that had changed me as a person till I was watching. Now I understand better why vets don’t talk about their experiences - no one can ever understand.
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Ahhh, but some vets do talk about their experiences. My dad has always talked about his war experiences. As kids, we’d sit crosslegged on the floor listening for hours as he recounted his adventures in Marine boot camp, his first time in combat, the night of the banzai on Guam and what was left the next morning, the nightmarish day he spent on Iwo Jima that ended with a Purple Heart, and the loss of many good friends. Maybe talking about it was his therapy, but it also imbedded in me the great love and respect I have for our military and what they do.
I used to follow your postings when you were in Iraq. I finally dropped you from my favorite lists because I thought you had finished blogging. I’m very impressed with lengths to which you went to train those Soldiers in CLS.
Like Kbug said some due talk about it. SSG David Bellavia went further and wrote a book about it. House to House: An Epic Memior of War is the most visceral, gut-wrenching candid thing I have ever read about being in combat. The book follows Bellavia and his platoon through operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah in 2004. He single handedly cleared a house in Fallujah that was set by the insurgents as a kill zone. This is the ONLY time I have ever read someone writing about their mental processes as he re-lives his horrific experience on paper. He has been put foward fot the MOH.
I suspect that the book was a form of therapy.
I’m glad to see you writing again.
Take care.
I have been writing since February 2002. Sometimes I take a bit of a break cause my motivation level goes through the floor, but I always come back.
Most the time I just figure nobody really wants to read the mundane dailies that are my life, so I only write when something worthwhile occurs…
I have been thinking that this particular piece was more forced than usual. I amnot really happy with it or the way it came out compared to where I intended to go. Oh well.
Ahhh but Doc, Isn’t that what ‘real’ life is? The mundane with moments of excitement thrown in to keep us on our toes??
Keep writing, please. By the way, life is never mundane with Kids…
Amen… My Wife keeps everyone up to date on that.
I am a volunteer at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Marines give their Navy Corps men the utmost respect. I gave a tour to some members of Team Semper Fi, wounded warriors who were going to be running the Marine Corps Marathon. When we arrived at the entrance of the WW2 gallery there is a scene of a Corpsman treating a wounded Marine on Tarawa. All of the guys pressed their noses to the glass, almost like little boys looking at some cool toy in a toy shop window ( I know odd comparison there) and then started talking with their family members, quietly, while I told them about the scene. I started to head into the World War 2 gallery and they just stood there, intently looking at the display talking to their family members.
Each Marine was telling his parents or wife about the Corpsman that had saved his life on the battle field. So, I waited. One of the Marines said to me, “Ma’am, you don’t know how near and dear to our hearts our Corpsmen are to us. None of us would be here today if it weren’t for them.” That is a story that I retell to tours I give, and I get choked up every time.
I have no idea the horrible things you guys see. But I gotta tell you, those men and women you help never for get you.