Veterans Day: The Solitary World of a Vet

On Veterans Day, it is important for those who have never served to take a moment to understand the solitary world of a vet.

Millions of vets are and have been successful in all endeavors. They are doctors, lawyers, business people and a thousand other professions. Not all have PTSD; not all are the troubled, brooding, street corner homeless guy, although they exist and need help desperately.

No matter how successful a vet might be materially, more often than not, vets are often alone, mentally and spiritually each day and for the rest of their lives.

Vets’ stories are all different, but some elements of the common experience exist.

Many vets experienced and saw and heard and did things unimaginable to the average person. They also lived a daily camaraderie that cannot be repeated in the civilian world. In fact, many vets spend the rest of their lives seeking the same esprit de corps that simply is absent from their civilian lives and jobs. They long to spend just 15 minutes back with the best friends they ever had, friends that are scattered to every corner of the earth, and some to the afterlife itself.

Vets are haunted by visions of horror and death, by guilt of somehow surviving and living the good life, when some they knew are gone. They strangely wish sometimes that they were back in those dreadful circumstances, not to experience the dirt and horror and terror and noise and violence again, but to be with the only people a vet really knows, other vets.

Civilians must understand that for a vet nothing is ever the same again. Their senses can be suddenly illuminated by the slightest sound or smell or sight: sights of death all around, a living version of Dante’s Inferno; sounds so loud that they can only be described as Saving Private Ryan in surround sound on steroids; smells vast and horrific; rotting death, burning fuel and equipment, rubber, animals and…people. The smoldering ruins of life all around them.

All vets have these thoughts nearly every day. Some may experience them for fractions of second, or for minutes at a time. They replay over and over again like an endless 24 hour war movie.

Part of the solitary world of the vet is being able to enjoy complete bliss doing absolutely nothing. This is a trait grating to civilians who must constantly search for endless stimuli. Unbeknownst to them, the greatest thrill of all is just being alive. A lot of vets have an Obi-wan Kenobi calmness. After what they went through, how bad can anything really be?

As King said to Chris in Platoon, “Make it outta here, it’s all gravy, every day of the rest of your life – gravy…”

So many, if not all vets walk around each day lost in their own special story. They were once great actors on a giant stage with speaking parts and props. Maybe they were heroes and now they aren’t anymore. Maybe they helped save the world and now they can’t. Maybe they gave orders and now they take them. Maybe they thought that they could accomplish anything and now they know they can’t. Perhaps their lives now are smaller and slower and sometimes in the vet’s mind, just incidental, even though they’re not.

Most civilians are oblivious to the solitary life of the vet. But, it’s there. It’s the same eternal and universal philosophy, whether you fought in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq or Afghanistan. The experiences may have been different, but the emotions are the same.

A problem with the solitary world of the vet is that the vet has a hard time explaining what he or she did to those who didn’t serve. Some vets want to talk, but they have no outlet. Maybe their only outlet is watching a war movie or reading a book about the conflict they were in.

How often do people say, “Grandpa never talks about Korea.” That’s because Grandpa knows no one can understand except other vets. That’s because Grandpa knows most people don’t care.

Part of this taciturn mentality is that vets speak another language, a strange and archaic language of their past. How do you talk to civilians about “fire for effect” or “grid 7310” or “shake and bake” or “frag orders” or “10 days and a wake up” or a thousand and one other terms that are mystifying to the real world?

All of this adds to the solitary world of the vet. Some are better at handling life afterwards than others. Some don’t seem affected at all, but they are. They just hide it. Some never return to normal. But, what is normal to a vet anymore?

So, this Veterans Day, if you see a vet sitting by themselves at a restaurant or on a train or shopping at the grocery store alone, take a moment to speak with them. Take them out of their solitary world for a moment. You’ll be happy you did.

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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