Veterans Day: The Solitary World of a Vet

An eye opening description of a combat grunts view of the battlefield

The following is an excerpt from The Things They Carried by Tim O' Brien....

"How do you generalize? War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.

The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty. For all its horror, you can't help but gape at the awful majesty of combat. You stare out at tracer rounds unwinding through the dark like brilliant red ribbons. You crouch in ambush as a cool, impassive moon rises over the nighttime paddies. You admire the fluid symmetries of troops on the move, the great sheets of metal-fire streaming down from a gunship, the illumination rounds, the white phosphorus, the purply orange glow of napalm, the rocket's red glare. It's not pretty, exactly. It's astonishing. It fills the eye. It commands you. You hate it, yes, but your eyes do not. Like a killer forest fire, like cancer under a microscope, any battle or bombing raid or artillery barrage has the aesthetic purity of absolute moral indifference - a powerful, implacable beauty - and a true war story will tell the truth about this, though the truth is ugly.

To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true. Though it's odd, you're never more alive than when you're almost dead. You recognize what's valuable. Freshly, as if for the first time, you love what's best in yourself and in the world, all that might be lost. At the hour of dusk you sit at your foxhole and look out on a wide river turning pinkish red, and at the mountains beyond, and although in the morning you must cross the river and go into the mountains and do terrible things and maybe die, even so, you find yourself studying the fine colors on the river, you feel wonder and awe at the setting of the sun, and you are filled with a hard, aching love for how the world could be and always should be, but now is not.

Great sheets of metal fire example

“Not all veterans are combat veterans. In fact, most who served after Vietnam and before Desert Storm never were.”

As a Vietnam Era Veteran who served six years in the Air Force in Conus Based units and a Unit in Korea I find it difficult to deal with the way Noncombat vets are treated.

I was a Noncombat non because I chose to but because the throw of the Governments dice decided it wasn't necessary following almost 10 years of war in Vietnam. While that war was going on I was in High School.

As a result of this angst between the Combat and Non Combat Vets I had decided to not join the American Legion even though I have received many invitations to do so.

I just think that I would not be comfortable around people who would hold it against me because I didn't happen to serve One day in Combat. As I said earlier It was the throw of the dice.I was just lucky like a few million other guys and gals.

While it is true that all who served are veterans , it is akin to the National Defense Service Ribbon in that one day of active duty qualifies the award. Those who have been in actual combat share an experience and a bond that can never be duplicated by any action other than the experience. Bong-Bong- Bong, this a drill, this a drill, General Quarters, General Quarters, all hands man your battle stations causes entirely different reactions than the announcement this is not a drill when every man in the division becomes a warrior and the poor performer, lazy know nothing suddenly has the strength of 10 men and knows the procedures to split the plant for combat without one word of instruction. Yes, you may be a veteran and thanks for your dedication to our country but there is a difference and not necessarily by choice between a combat veteran and others.

From my friend’s father who was a Korean War Veteran:

This United States Marine

It was his first night in Korea,
The stars were bright and clean;
The very first night of combat,
For this United States Marine.

The moon was high above the mountains
And glistened on the snow
That covered the rocky hillside
And the valley down below.

Then he heard their bugles loud and clear
That echoed through the night;
He saw the rocks turn into men
And he held his rifle tight.

The flares lit up the valley
And he saw the quilted men;
He raised and fired his rifle once,
And then fired it once again.

The human wave came up the hill,
Each step brought them higher;
They seemed to take no heed at all
To the land mines and barbed wire.

He fought them hand-to-hand
With knife and bayonet
Until the ground around his feet
Was dark and red and wet.

He drove them from the bunkers
Till up they came no more,
And twisted, quilted bodies lay
Upon the valley floor.

He stood there silently and looked
At sights he’d never seen;
He had held his ground against all odds,
This United States Marine

Mitch Stovall - USMC

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