WE CALLED THIS HOME:

We came from the four corners of the world to fight against a people who had grown up in the midst of hostility and violence. A land of turmoil and  hardships, cruelty and death. Human dignity had no meaning, this was a place of war.

There was a common bond and respect towards each other that we had as fighting men. We understood the impossibilities of peace in this land. We faced challenges we were unprepared for and we lived in an environment totally contrary to our homelands. The heat was sweltering, the insects and snakes were a force we had to reckon with, for one bite or one itch left unattended could be the death of a soldier. We dealt with sickness and foot rot,  death and loss on a daily basis. We drank from streams that were unfit to piss in, we walked and crawled over land unfit for man or beast. We lived among the barren trees where agent orange had destroyed any and all living green. Vietnam in some areas looked like a place of the dead, strange and ghostly. 

WE CALLED THIS HOME.

We were unprepared for the visions of carnage that would come to be commonplace. We were unprepared for the changes that would take place within us as our very souls escaped and our hearts stopped beating the beats of compassion. We were there to survive and we were there to take human life. Nothing else mattered but to get through our tour of duty no matter what the cost, but we MUST never count the cost. We existed in the present for the future was unreachable and the past was unbearable to remember, but we MUST exist. We pushed the death of our buddies back and buried them deep in the corridors of our minds. We MUST try to forget. Unknowing to us that one day what we had buried would resurrect again to haunt our memories. We now willingly accept these ghost's of the past as they spring forth to life within us. And so, what we forgot to remember is nourished and cherished as well as feared. First the pain and then the healing begins.

Before a wound is completely healed there is a scab of hardness that has to be peeled off. It must be displaced so the air can get to it and wound can breath and regenerate itself.  It takes the salve of time, rightly applied to the affected area for the mending of a wound.  A wound that was so deep that we thought it may never heal again. We now know, after time, that it would take the bonding of the survivors blended with the tears of compassion for each other, and the shared yet unspoken understanding of our loss and our guilt, for us to regain our dignity.

I think back to the days of Vietnam.  I remember the first Vietcong KIA laying there in the dirt eyes half closed. I see the flies buzzing around him entering into his mouth. I remember the stench of death as it attacked my nostrils. The twisted body, lifeless as his blood seeped into the dusty ground. Then, I had no compassion for the soul of my enemy.

Today I think of this and I wonder about the callousness of war. I wonder who were the parents of this enemy. I wonder if he had a wife who would mourn his death. Were there children or brothers and sisters who would suffer at the loss of this...My enemy?  An adversary  who was also fighting for what he thought was right.

I thank God for the salve of His forgiveness. I thank Him for removing the heart that was so calloused. I thank Him for the dignity he has restored in my soul and also for the peace. I thank Him for the friends I have found who are willing to listen. I thank Him for a wife that has fought hard to comfort and understand her Marine. I Thank Him for My fellow Veterans who have walked every step of the way with me.

I AM NOT ALONE.