"Being Wounded
None of us really expects to get hit but when we are, there are a whole bunch of things that happen to us no matter how prepared we think we are. It’s happening to you now: you are among the most recent of a long line of Marines that have been severely injured in combat. There are fellow Marines that have gone through their own version of this before you and if we could, we’d like to share some of our experiences to help you along with your recovery.
It hurts. No matter what you expected and unlike the movies, getting wounded carries serious pain with it. It’s part of the body’s defensive system but no matter what medication they give for you, pain is going to be your companion for a while. Pain is a very personal thing and it’s something you’ll have to take on all by yourself for a while. The only comfort I’ve got for you is that you have to be alive to feel the pain. Eventually, it will begin to ebb and hopefully go away.
Sometimes you’ll feel guilty. It’s a normal process in a tightly-connected team like the Marine Corps to get feelings of regret that you survived where other Marines of yours did not or you may feel that you should still be there, supporting your unit. This is completely normal and we all felt it. The important part to remember is that combat is combat: the whole purpose of combat is to kill and wound people and you got hit. It’s not your fault and nobody, anywhere would think otherwise. Your getting hit may very well have saved someone else behind you. It’s a little like being hit by lightning; and you were the one hit by the bolt and others were spared. Your primary duty to your unit and yourself now is to recover as completely as your body will allow.
You’ll feel depression. This is also normal – this is a big change in your life and it’s filled with uncertainty and pain. The guilt feelings mentioned above or just the difficulties your recovery will face and accommodating a new future can cause depression to take hold. This is also normal and another obstacle to overcome. The best way to beat depression is to get close to your central values and your family. Your chaplain and your fellow Marines are dependable sources of comfort and if you need help dealing with depression, fight it through your faith and with the help of people near you. Talk about your situation with people you trust and get the issues off your chest. It’s normal and expected and manly to seek help.
People often don’t react they way you thought they would. People are people. You’ll get some odd questions about your experience because people are curious about what you’ve endured but they won’t know how to express it properly. Sometimes people will say unthinking things and you’ll have to be able to remember that they don’t mean any harm and try to be the bigger man and answer with care. Others will try to ignore what has happened to you or avoid talking to you about any of your experiences. They may do this because they are trying to save you from having to relive your experience. They might also be trying to avoid discussing your involvement in combat when they have not served or have not been there and they feel guilty. The main thing you need to do is to comfort your loved ones and stay strong during this first hard part. It gets better later.
Dreams/”the flinches”. Another part of recovery is the process of reliving some of your experiences in bad dreams and the other effect called the Startle Reaction or the “flinches”. The dreams usually show up sometime within the first few months after combat and they are a result of your mind coming to grips with the extraordinary experiences you’ve had. Combat involves death and injury and other human shocks that no amount of training or preparation completely prepares you for. The dreams leave after a while after the mind acclimatizes to your new safer situation and just remember that those dreams are completely normal for somebody who’s gone through what you’re going through. The “flinches” are also normal. You hear a loud noise – usually something that sounds like a shot – and you try to get under something or at least pull your head down into your neck. Happens to all of us and after a while, you’ll quit doing that. Little brothers find this effect particularly funny.
Your life has changed. That’s the main effect of being wounded; your life has changed by what ever remaining injury you’ll have left after your recovery. How severely you were wounded controls a lot of that but there’s also a component based on how strong you are within yourself. You control a lot of the progress and pace of your recovery by keeping your mind and your heart into it. How well you are able to get back to where you want to be again is to a great deal, something that you’ll have to control. Redeveloping yourself takes strength and courage particularly if it will take overcoming some serious losses of your body. You will have to face those changes, overcome as much as you can overcome and become the new man that you are. There have been many thousands of us before you and most of us we have done well with our new lives. Our thoughts and our prayers are with you in this new fight.
Remember one thing above all. You are now one of the few Marines that has bled for his team, his Corps, and his country. This price that you are paying and will pay has been for all of us, past, present, and future. No matter what you eventually achieve with your life, , you will always know that you were one of the select few that has paid the price of being a Marine in combat. You will also know that you had the courage to take it and keep going. All of us that went before you are proud of you and stand with you and we’re here for you if you need us.
Semper Fi "
Thank you for that letter in your post. There is a tight cadre after every action that can find the similarities in their experiences and your article is a great example of that.
May 8th will be 55 years for me and the term 'it hurts' has never been truer with every step I take, but that is tempered by knowing the many many thousands that never got to take another 55 years of steps. Semper Fi Chainmail, keep up your awesome work with the younger ones.