When I See a Soldier

They say it all the time. Civilians don’t understand them. No one wants to listen to them. They feel as if they don’t belong anymore. They are right but instead of regretting this, they should hold their heads up high knowing they don’t fit in with the masses.

“It speaks for us, it’s the standard we live by, what binds us as brothers and sisters in arms that you just can’t get anywhere else.” Sgt. Robert Wright

With World War II it was everyone knew someone serving. The entire nation was mobilized behind the war effort. Movie theaters updated audiences and producers put out movies to take minds off the war while other producers were putting out patriotic movies to make sure no one really stopped thinking about the men and women putting their lives on the line. Even with this, they returned home picking up the pieces of their lives while no one really wanted to hear their stories. Some wanted to talk so they joined groups of other veterans. Some wanted to just forget all about it but as we’ve seen over recent years, they were suffering in silence because of the advice older veterans gave them to “just get over it” and move on with their lives.

In The War by Ken Burns on PBS featured veterans talking about what they thought they had to hide. It was clear listening to them they brought the war back with them. For some it was called “shell shock” but now we know it as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Baby boomers grew up with these veterans but few knew anything about what they did, what they went through, beyond what they learned in text books. It was not part of the “real” world they lived in where the biggest threat they faced was if they would pass their test of get asked to the prom. When these veterans “got on with their lives” they returned to jobs surrounded by others who had been there and done that. This nation also made sure they had jobs, help starting businesses and homes but it was clear even with the multitudes of veterans coming home, they really didn’t fit back in as much as they thought they would.

Think about the cops we see on the roads all the time. We freak out when we see a police car and we’re driving quickly looking at our speed afraid we’re going to get a ticket but beyond that, we really don’t think about them much at all until we need them. Do we understand what makes them want to strap on a gun everyday ready to face off with whatever the day brings knowing today they may not make it back home? Do we really understand firefighters willing to spend boring days at the fire house knowing any second that alarm bell will sound and someone’s life is on the line waiting for their help just as their own lives are on the line? The masses cannot understand these people willing to die to help anymore than they can understand a soldier.

‘Nobody Knows Our Pain More Than Each Other’

What binds soldiers to this austere life, and separates them from civilians, is the intensity of combat and the love that glows among soldiers dependent on each other for life. Army Pfc. Robert Bartlett, an Army scout-sniper, was riding in a Humvee near Baghdad when an IED exploded, ripping away his left eye along with bone and tissue from his cheek, nose, lip and jaw. The blast collapsed a lung, perforated internal organs, fractured facial bone and burned away flesh from his face and hands. The soldier beside him was killed instantly. The turret gunner above Bartlett collapsed on his own shredded and charred legs.

A bear of a man, Bartlett was dragged out of the kill zone, dead. Frantic medics slit his throat to insert a breathing tube, massaged his chest, punched in an IV. His heart fluttered and began pumping weakly. He and the gunner were medevacked away to years of surgery and rehabilitation.

Looking back on that horror four years later, Bartlett told me his Army experience was so rewarding, so important, that he’d do it all over again. “It was, hands down, the best thing I have ever done in my life,” he said. Today he is devoted to helping other veterans live full lives. “It’s important that we look after one another,” he said. “Nobody knows our pain more than each other.”

“War does change you, I believe in a better way, a noble way,” said Col. Williams, the helicopter brigade commander whose daughter is an Army second lieutenant and whose wife is a retired officer. “A decade of combat has made us very hard. It has made us an incredibly strong Army. I believe we do have a warrior class in this country.”

“We look at life differently,” he said. “For a lot of soldiers, there are two kinds of people: those who serve, and those who expect to be served, and those who serve are pretty noble.”

In the 10th Year of War, a Harder Army, a More Distant America, David Wood, Chief Military Correspondent Harder Army, More Distant America

“For a lot of soldiers, there are two kinds of people: those who serve, and those who expect to be served” which really gets to the bottom of the deal we make. We want them to be there when we need them but when they need us we don’t want to think about them at all. Some have total disregard for them. Others hate them and call them killers as if they grew up wanting to get their hands on real guns to kill people as easily as they fire away on a computer game. The real world for them is they want to save lives but face the possibility they may have to take lives in order to do it. We can debate how much the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing us but we seem to leave out what they cost the men and women sent to these nations. We can debate the reasons for each war but the intention of those who serve had this country first in their minds. In other words, to serve to save.

They were told that the people responsible for the attacks on September 11th were based in Afghanistan, so it was a matter of getting the people responsible and not killing off all Afghans. They saw how the Afghans lived and were told they were there to help them have better lives so that they would not support the terrorists. “Winning the hearts and minds” was about helping them no matter what the intent was by politicians. Then came Iraq and they were told again that it was for the sake of this nation when Saddam was “ready to attack” along with a lot of other nonsense most Americans believed. Then it was about giving the Iraqis a better life. So we let all the debates for and against get in the way of what the intention of those who serve was.

Some think of them as killers because that is what they were trained to do but if we thought about it, we’d see they were trained to kill so they could defend just as a police officer is trained to do. Some find no problem in hating a cop just as some have no problem in hating a soldier but these same people end up wondering where the cop is when they were a victim of a crime or accident, just as they wonder where the National Guards are when they went through a storm, flood, forest fire, mud slide or they had to be dug out of the snow. They would wonder where the soldiers are if there was an enemy force trying to take over this nation if everyone else was just focusing on their own lives, families, needs and wants but because they are serving, showing up, willing to lay down their lives, there will always be someone there to defend the rest of us.

When I see a soldier sometimes I can’t do more than smile or nod as I pass by them. I know they are totally different than I am. I serve them but I never had to do more than give up some hours of my time to help them. I never had to risk my life for their sake. How can I really understand what it is like to be in possession of that kind of soul that the life of someone else matters more? I can understand what it is like to love my family and friends that I would put my life on the line for them but not for a stranger or for the majority of the population of this country without a simple prayer. How can I know what it is like to be willing to leave my “life” with family and friends to go off to some other country to risk my life for them? I can’t but I’ll be damned if I don’t try to repay the debt in some way.

When I see pictures of my husband as a soldier in Vietnam, it is hard to connect that part of his life to the guy sitting on the couch laughing at dreamers on America’s Got Talent with no talent at all then captivated by others with tremendous talent. Hard to connect that skinny soldier with the gray haired biker in the leather vest hugging his “brothers” or the man who takes my hand every time we walk together. I know he is the same man. He risked his life in Vietnam, came home hated by some, avoided by others, told to get over it, stop talking about it and put it all behind him. He is the same man showing up still to this day to help other people.

When I see a soldier, I see him. I see someone thinking about other people first ending up being thought of last. I am glad they don’t fit in with the rest of us because if they were like the rest of us, we would have been taken over a long time ago.