Of course, there are others who seamlessly re-entered civilian life, the veterans, who should be honored as well....we have the November holiday.
But this thread....remembering the third legion...warriors who have no holiday. Their return was not seamless.....many have injuries that can be seen....and many have those injuries not able to be seen, once called 'shell shock,' now Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
1. War is an accepted and regular practice among hominids....Homo sapiens. No major religion has demanded an end to the practice, and, in fact, the oldest of our traditions memorializes a final one at Megiddo, Israel: a final battle between the forces of good vs. evil.
2. Social scientists attribute this.....avocation.....to our very nature. Zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris writes, in his masterpiece, "The Naked Ape," that man is no different from many other animals who fight and kill.
In fact, the animal characteristic of tribalism leads to aggression and warfare. Almost as though we shy away from any discussion that imagines the end of all warfare, very little attention is given....purposely......to the effects on those who participate.....and survive.
3. Memorial day is reserved for those who did not return, or who returned and then perished.
It is not Veterans Day....the November day when all who served are honored.\
Even so....there is a category between the two,....
And there is not enough attention paid to this group.
Many return from war with wounds that cannot be seen....and are difficult to treat.
More Vietnam veterans have died of suicide than in the actual event of the war.
4. John Connolly writes poignantly about some of our veterans who didn't make it out of war unscathed....This is from his novel 'The Whisperers.'
".... Ronald spoke to me of suicides and homelessness; of addiction and waking nightmares; of men left without limbs who were struggling to receive full disability from the military; of the backlog of claims, 400,000 and counting; and of those whose scars were not visible, who were damaged psychologically but not physically, and whose sacrifice was therefore not recognized as yet by their government, for they were denied a Purple Heart. "
"... his small office, from which he was running Concerned Veterans of Maine. The walls were covered with clippings from newspapers, and tables of fatalities, and photographs. One, directly above Ronaldās computer, depicted a woman helping her injured son from his bed. The picture had been taken from behind, so that only the motherās face was visible. It took me a moment to spot what was wrong with the photograph: almost half of the young manās head was missing, and what was left was a network of scars and crevasses, like the surface of the moon. His motherās face displayed a mixture of emotions too complex to interpret.
āGrenade,ā said Ronald. āHe lost forty percent of his brain. Heāll need constant care for the rest of his life. His mother, she doesnāt look young, does she?ā He said it as if noticing her for the first time, even though he must have stared at her every single day.
āNo, she doesnāt.ā
And I wondered what would be better: for him to die before his mother, so that his pain could come to an end, and hers could take another, perhaps less wrenching, form; or for him to outlive her, so that she could have her time with him, and be a mother to him as she was when he was an infant, when the possibility of a life like this could only have come to her in a nightmare. The former would be best, I thought, for if he lived too long then she would be gone, and eventually he would become a shadow in the corner of a room, a name without a past, forgotten by others and with no memories of his own."
Memorial Day, 2017
Spare a prayer for those who returned.....sort of.
But this thread....remembering the third legion...warriors who have no holiday. Their return was not seamless.....many have injuries that can be seen....and many have those injuries not able to be seen, once called 'shell shock,' now Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
1. War is an accepted and regular practice among hominids....Homo sapiens. No major religion has demanded an end to the practice, and, in fact, the oldest of our traditions memorializes a final one at Megiddo, Israel: a final battle between the forces of good vs. evil.
2. Social scientists attribute this.....avocation.....to our very nature. Zoologist and ethologist Desmond Morris writes, in his masterpiece, "The Naked Ape," that man is no different from many other animals who fight and kill.
In fact, the animal characteristic of tribalism leads to aggression and warfare. Almost as though we shy away from any discussion that imagines the end of all warfare, very little attention is given....purposely......to the effects on those who participate.....and survive.
3. Memorial day is reserved for those who did not return, or who returned and then perished.
It is not Veterans Day....the November day when all who served are honored.\
Even so....there is a category between the two,....
And there is not enough attention paid to this group.
Many return from war with wounds that cannot be seen....and are difficult to treat.
More Vietnam veterans have died of suicide than in the actual event of the war.
4. John Connolly writes poignantly about some of our veterans who didn't make it out of war unscathed....This is from his novel 'The Whisperers.'
".... Ronald spoke to me of suicides and homelessness; of addiction and waking nightmares; of men left without limbs who were struggling to receive full disability from the military; of the backlog of claims, 400,000 and counting; and of those whose scars were not visible, who were damaged psychologically but not physically, and whose sacrifice was therefore not recognized as yet by their government, for they were denied a Purple Heart. "
"... his small office, from which he was running Concerned Veterans of Maine. The walls were covered with clippings from newspapers, and tables of fatalities, and photographs. One, directly above Ronaldās computer, depicted a woman helping her injured son from his bed. The picture had been taken from behind, so that only the motherās face was visible. It took me a moment to spot what was wrong with the photograph: almost half of the young manās head was missing, and what was left was a network of scars and crevasses, like the surface of the moon. His motherās face displayed a mixture of emotions too complex to interpret.
āGrenade,ā said Ronald. āHe lost forty percent of his brain. Heāll need constant care for the rest of his life. His mother, she doesnāt look young, does she?ā He said it as if noticing her for the first time, even though he must have stared at her every single day.
āNo, she doesnāt.ā
And I wondered what would be better: for him to die before his mother, so that his pain could come to an end, and hers could take another, perhaps less wrenching, form; or for him to outlive her, so that she could have her time with him, and be a mother to him as she was when he was an infant, when the possibility of a life like this could only have come to her in a nightmare. The former would be best, I thought, for if he lived too long then she would be gone, and eventually he would become a shadow in the corner of a room, a name without a past, forgotten by others and with no memories of his own."
Memorial Day, 2017
Spare a prayer for those who returned.....sort of.
