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I was pinged here, but could have lived without reading this.

I do not miss military life. I hated almost every day I suffered through it. Through all the different countries and strange customs and mindsets. I silently cursed the world for the stifling heat that sapped the life out of Me, the freezing cold that threatened various necessary appendages, the endless rain that ran into My boots and was an unavoidable source of Jungle Rot -and the times of sheer terror that forced Me to react not logically but with that most primeval part of My brain that a Neanderthal could immediately relate to.

I never talk about those times with anyone. No-one has ever heard Me relate them, no matter how close they were to Me or how intoxicated I was. Well, one cop came close when I admitted to him that I had been shot at before. If he only knew... A cousin once asked Me when I first came back if I had ever killed anyone over there. Time stopped and all the memories came rushing back. Again I was there, each and every moment of danger as fresh as when they first occurred and I was unable to speak. They told Me I looked like I was looking through him and through the walls far, far into the distance. I finally looked back at him and the vast gulf of in-understandability present within the question and the innocent earnestness with which he was cocooned in and just said, "I don't want to talk about it". He persisted and asked; "So is that a 'yes'"? My other cousin jumped in and loudly said "HE SAID HE DOES NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT"!

How can you explain the unexplainable?

They tell Me I thrash about in My sleep. Sometimes, before I am fully awake I can not suppress the memories quickly enough and I feel it all again. The sights, the smells, the ear-splitting sounds... and sometimes, also the unforgettable silence when a man is suddenly crossed over before he can react. I can still taste the blood. Smell the smoke. Feel the ringing in My ears from the impossibly loud sounds. And still see the faces of the long-dead. There is no way at all that I could ever wish those events to occur again. Yes, we were impossibly young -mere boys in the eyes of some (eighteen in My case) but men in ways our friends back home could never compare to. How can you possibly explain the experience of titanic masses of metal impacting together or the feeling you get when a large chunk of metal goes whizzing by your head and you realize that only a fraction of a degree the wrong way and you would be just another cooling mass of flesh awaiting the cold and silent embrace of a very small patch of ground?

Now the injuries from those days have affected My life and I an deemed no longer fit for active service. Honestly, I would be happier being able to live a more able life. So when someone says they miss those days, I tell them they must be crazy., Yes, I did ten years -far more than a single tour of duty requires, but I had My reasons. Not too long ago a man at least ten years My senior thanked Me in person for My service to our country. First time in over twenty years that has happened. I thanked him politely and then moved on as quickly as I could. Then I found a chair and spent a good long while fighting back the silent tears and trembling in My hands and weak legs from the rush of memories. And the feelings of unworthiness when I remembered good men long gone.

But if I could take the place of one young serviceman so that he would not have to have some memories similar to mine...

Better that I who have some small inkling about what to expect do it all again than have those same nightmares tormenting another lost soul.