Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ Many of us can’t imagine what Veterans, especially combat Veterans endured or the sacrifices they’ve made. Here’s an invitation to take the time to reflect on being a combat veteran. These mediations are based on the personal stories veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan shared with me over the years. Some I heard as a young boy growing up in Philadelphia, others doing counseling at detox center in the Veteran’s Hospital in West Philadelphia back in the 80’s, and some of these stories were related to me by neighbors and friends.
What if you were to occupy the skins and emotions of the Veteran’s below and looked out at the world through their eyes?
• You’re 18 and you are leaving home for the first time to travel on a bus to Paris Island, South Carolina to become a Marine. You just met the drill sergeant and he appears to have a peculiar distaste for your presence. You try not to take it personally. The chiggers and the sand fleas take a special interest in you too. You miss your girl back in Pennsylvania and within the month you get a Dear John letter saying it would be okay to start seeing other people. You read the letter to your buddies and they provide you with sage advice like: “There’s always another bus coming.” Only a couple of weeks ago this girl was your fiancé. The bus thing isn’t working, but it was well-intentioned. Your buddies stand by you and you stand by them.
• The wind is cold and howling across the Yalu River separating China and North Korea. You and your buddies have a forward machinegun nest. You’re catching some needed shuteye, when Ralph from Michigan shakes you awake. “Look at all of em’,” says Ralph. “There must be thousands.”
A hundred thousand Chinese soldiers are massed along the banks of the Yalu forming a human wave as far as the eye can see. All wearing the same green uniforms. They are this menacing dark cloud over there. They move along the banks and now they are headed in your direction. Thousands of Chinese regular army. It’s dawning on you and your buddies that none you are likely to ever see home again or the next hour. Ben’s praying and Ralph is anxiously readying his machinegun for what’s coming. Then the human wave changes direction along the Yalu. Your gradually notice your underwear is sopping wet. 5 minutes ago you would never have thought to pray out loud. You won’t forget what you saw for as long as you live. You’ll wake up for years to come in the early morning hours and be drenched in cold sweat with a vivid memory of that human wave moving slowly along the banks of the Yalu. Some mornings that memory feels like right now.
• You’ll never forget those Japanese torpedo bombers flying in low from the Northwest during the Battle of the Coral Sea or the terrific concussion when the first bomb struck and your aircraft carrier shuddered. Or the thick plumes of oily smoke that burned your eyes and nostrils. The sense of being weightless. You don’t recall anything more until you woke up in a crowded lifeboat. Your throat is incredibly dry and you notice the swell of the lifeboat as it rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Your life changed in the Coral Sea. You have no feeling from the waist down. A year from now you would have learned how to go from being depressed to gradually accepting you would have many opportunities for a fruitful life without the use of your limbs.
Be thankful for all the many sacrifices Veteran men and women made to preserve what we have here.
