The Conclusion

“Okay black man, so let’s get the basic facts straight and ask the obvious question.”

He is an acquaintance of my muse, and he isn’t smiling.

I don’t know if he’s black, white, or from the other side.

“One week, a decade ago, you had a bad experience. You’ve decided to purge it from your spirit, but who honestly gives a shit about it? Everybody has a bad day. Rub some dirt on it, and walk it off. Most importantly, SHUT UP about it. It’s unimportant.”

The fact that the conversation was happening entirely inside my mind coupled with the realization that I was alone in the room kept pounding the inside of my consciousness like a timpani.

He was right in a sense. It’s a point I can’t argue.

But I have to finish, because I know that there has ALWAYS turned out to be a method to my madness.

There’s a reason my spirit has kept this story bottled up for these 3500+ days and nights.

There’s a reason my fingers fairly fly whenever I start to recall the details.

There’s a reason my thoughts zoom ... from electrical impulses inside my head, to whispered phrases nobody hears but me, to memorized finger-cadences marching across the keyboard, to saved bytes and bits I had to buy a new hard drive to store, to words on a page, to a light bulb switching “on” in YOUR mind.

It’s a journey of mere seconds.

Something eerie this way goes.

I’ve chosen to verbally fight him—this elegant, logical, and articulate stranger trespassing in the dark recesses of my mind.

I can’t quite see him in the shadows he favors, but I’ve conjured up a picture of him.

He wears a black hat. I’ve decided I’ll verbally battle him word for word, because as I grow older the wisdoms of my elders increase in value.

George Santayana, my elder by every measure, left me a priceless jewel. He said:

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

It stands to reason that those who never HEAR history have a fair and honest excuse for their inevitable, yet unnecessary repetition.

But if the people who KNOW the history don’t tell the people who may not---whose fault is the inexhaustible groundhog day?

As of this month, there are roughly 150,000 American servicemen and women in Iraq. There are another 20-thousand or so in Afghanistan.

While we debate and discuss how they got there, whether they should be there, and how soon they should/will/could come home—there’s a MUCH more important question that nobody’s asking at the town hall meeting.

WHO WILL THEY BE WHEN THEY GET BACK?

We’re not talking about your brother, or father, or cousin, or uncle, or friend, of course … we’re discussing the “other guy.”

Because it is a fact of history that none of the people we know or love has ever come back from war, let’s say … Vietnam, with any mental health issues.

For that matter, the experience has never so much as changed them one iota from being the happy-go-lucky, balanced, friendly guy who was King of the Prom.

RIGHT?

What sort of impact does exposure to death, chaos, and mayhem have on the psyche?

Anybody know??

A 34-year old hand slowly reaches for the sky from the back of the room.

“I know.”

The words are quiet.

Just a few of them, all but hidden on a weblog that nobody will ever read, hosted quietly on a website where anonymity is achieved by melting into the crowd of millions of bored Americans wandering in search of the sex, chat, and fun that are the bold-print items on the agenda.

But they are sincere.

“I have a history with that. And I don’t want anybody to have to repeat it.”

In the shadows of my mind, I can see the black-hatted doubter leaning forward.

He still wants me to “walk off” the pain. But he’s intrigued by the comment.

His aura begs me to consider the possibility that he’s a good guy after all.

Just, misunderstood.

I don’t know, and I'm afraid to find out.

But he’s assumed the position of “the thinker” and he’s listening.

Progress is.

I talked to a friend of mine days before I started writing chapter one of this story. He and I are military buddies. We have been friends for a long time, and in the old days he wanted to go to war.Now, he’s been.And he cries himself to sleep almost every night.

I can relate to that, except that the tears didn’t come when my particular slideshow started every 24th hour on the hour.

He unloaded on me.

Talked about the things he’d seen, the things he’d done, and the things he’d thought about doing.

He told me in confidence, and has given me permission to reference the conversation here … but made me promise to never use his name.

He’s talked about the killing, and the dying.

He’s talked about the maiming, and the blood.

He’s talked about the violence, and the sound.

The smell.

And the heat.

He reached the end, and stopped talking.

Now ... we talk about football, and girls, and funny cartoons.

All the stuff NORMAL teenagers discuss.

He says he is different, now.

When I stare into his eyes I believe him, and I know what he’s talking about.

I wasn't strong enough to find the voice I would need to scream in to give his story the kind of volume it would need to raise the roof off the muthafucka!

So I chose to tell you my story instead of his, because mine isn't as grotesque.

It's not as vivid, there is no good guy or bad guy in my story. There is only an accident, and victims.

Plus, I was finally ready.I am familiar with them both, and believe me when I tell you--My experience was absolutely NOTHING compared to his.

But I’ve walked a few steps down that road.I also believe that he’s strong, probably much stronger than I.

In ten years, you may find yourself reading HIS blog, and seeing this war through his eyes. He is a master with words, and I sometimes read what he writes when I search for inspiration.But he hasn’t written about this, yet.

I write on his behalf because neither you nor I have the luxury of waiting that decade. Because he is legion.

There are almost a MILLION people who have spent a month, or a quarter, or a year, or 18 months, or done repeat tours in the belly of these beasts of conflict.

And they have seen the hell that defines war, and becomes the fiction of tomorrow.

Most of them are stable, and will come back to what we always called “the world” to resume normal lives.

But there are a MILLION of them.

And some of them will suffer nightmares. Others will beat their wives, or children. A few will adjourn to the local bar, where they will spend every drunken night looking for a fight to give their newfound aggression a home. And a small percentage …

of the MILLION …

Will become a threat to you, the people you love, and the community you live in. They are not at fault. They have experienced a trauma so deep that it awakens their darker selves. They have been called upon to “defend freedom.” And defense of anything requires violence, killing and dying, watching, and the summoning of spirits we like to leave sleeping.

Those spirits are organic. They are not robots. You don't just "pull the plug" to power them down. They don’t simply return to rest.

They stalk the dark recesses of the mind, they pound the inside of the consciousness like a timpani. They appear wearing black hats, and lean in to better hear the discussion.

They speak.

They argue.

And sometimes, they win.

They turn men into rapists and thieves, havoc wreakers and murderers.

In one of the earlier chapters, I talked about the wallet … and the photo I can still see as clearly as if I were holding it in my hands. I didn’t know the woman, but yet … she haunts me.

How much greater would that haunting be if I’d killed her. Or watched her die?Watched her kill my friend? Watched HIM die?How much darker would my nightmares be if I’d CAUSED that tragedy, even unwillingly?Post-traumatic stress disorder is real.

I stAND UP in testimony to its existence and its very real power.We have exposed hundreds of thousands to hell, and pushed many of that number into trauma in the name of spreading democracy.Who will protect those victims when the gunfire stops?

Who will protect YOU when it starts again, much closer to home?

Who will quiet the nightmares? Debate the spirits, and clean up the mess??

Shiites and Sunnis were glaring at each other across the room when my grandfather's grandfather was tilling the fields.

They will still hate each other when my grandchildren’s grandchildren are given their first computer. I don’t care about that. It isn’t my problem. Theoretically, I could make it my problem, but I have to pick and choose my battles. I choose my brothers and sisters in arms … who have their OWN August 6th, 1997 experience to cope with. Thank you for listening.

He is quiet … my black-hatted stranger. I am not sure if he is thinking, or plotting.But I can still feel him, hugging the walls of my mind, as he contemplates his next move. He is probably me. I wonder what HE remembers.

(Originally Posted 11 August 2006)