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I've been sitting on this too long. I can't seem to find a good ending, maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.
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Ripples of War
My cousin died this past year. He was one of the lucky ones who came back from Viet Nam in one piece. He served his country, and performed with honor supporting the oath he took to defend us.
But wars are not simple things for the man on the ground. Politicians can speak in terms of abstractions – number of casualties, friendly fire, body counts, collateral damage.. For the man on the ground, he is the one who pulled the trigger, who killed or maimed, sometimes rightly, sometimes in error in the heat of battle.
The violence, the mayhem, is expected, and to some extent emotionally manageable by the survivors in a just war. But for those, who are duty bound to fight in an unjust war, they endure an entirely different kind of stress – guilt. Guilt for causing the death and wounding of other human beings, knowing that every act was committed not in defense of a nation, but in defense of a politician's image, or most despicably in defense of a lie. And yet, even in those circumstances, there is little choice for these soldiers -- most uphold their sworn duty.
My cousin came back. He tried to return to normal. To me, a young man in my early twenties at the time, he did seem normal. I was naive, I thought he was able to put it behind him. But it is not possible to put something like that behind you when you have a heart, and a conscience. How do you reconcile your actions with yourself? The truth, that he kept hidden, was he couldn't. So he could fall asleep without the same nightmares haunting him every night, he began to drink alcohol until he passed out. In the end, the alcohol which spared him the nightmares, also destroyed his liver.
And there were other casualties.
A mother, who could not accept a son sent to war, and her inability to speak of her personal torment which led to an estrangement of more than a decade from her own siblings.
A wife, who though she loved him, had to leave with the children to protect them and herself from a troubled home nobody deserved.
There is a daughter, who never will know her father, never know the delight he was before a needless war stole his sanity.
These are ripples of war, and they collide with innocent victims beyond the one who saw the bloodshed of a battle.
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