The American Soldier

In my previous post I could, of course, have spoken of our war dead, and our war wounded.  Men and women who lost legs, eyes, suffered traumatic brain injuries, or who wake up screaming every night, and whose spouses rightly fear them.

I feel the pain of these people too.  But what I want to speak to, the people I want to speak for, who are never spoken for because they are the least whiny human beings on the planet, are all those who WORKED, hard, for a very long time, who stayed up all night many nights, poring over maps, analyzing intercepts, who CARED about getting this thing right, about winning the war not just because it was their job, but because it was the right thing to do.  These people come back home, get civilian jobs, and largely disappear.  “You were in Iraq?”,  “Yes, ma’am, in 2005-2006, and again in 2010-2011.”

I just feel horror at looking at all this waste, this willful, unnecessary waste of human energy and talent.

This is another variant of PTSD: the bitterness of watching what you gave your life to torn apart and scattered.  That, I guess, is the use of Kipling.  I have If on my wall.