No Place to Hide

Part II Chapter 6
No Place to Hide

It is Memorial Day 2008 and Jerry finds an article on line titled, "The Making and Un-making of a Marine." It is written by Lawrence Winters.

"I was awake early the morning of Memorial Day. I lay thinking about why I wanted to get up while my wife slept restfully. Seeing her repose made me wonder what it’s like to truly be at rest. I can’t remember the last time I actually felt a state of complete relaxation. Of course I sleep, some. I even attain different levels of calm but real peace, a feeling of safety or surrender in my core of my being; I lost in the Vietnam War.
It being Memorial day and all the talk about war veterans coming home with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), I remembered something I’d read years ago. I thought it might apply to PTSD. The author said when we are hurt physically or emotionally, the traumatization causes our muscles to tighten up in protection. The example was given of when you stick an amoeba with a pin, its cell wall tenses; but after a few minutes it will relax to normal. If you keep sticking the amoeba, it will take longer for the cell wall to relax. Eventually the cell wall will go into stasis never recovering its relaxed state. The author went on to say that humans that are emotionally, physically hurt or frightened repeatedly developed a stasis that he called “body armor.” Body armor lets no emotion out or in. it occurs to me that this is what it’s like to have PTSD.
When a soldier is on the battlefield, pin pricks come in every size and shape. To make my point more current the battlefields of today’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the entire country - there is no such place as behind the lines. There is nowhere for a soldier to rest safely, not even the green zone. To over use my analogy of the amoeba, today’s soldiers have no place to hide from the pins and no time to recover once they’ve been stuck. The pin pricks in these wars come from daily exposure to direct explosions which have become the lethal background music of Iraq. The ever present drone of war‘s machinery in soldier‘s ears carries the menace of death, either their own or someone else‘s. The pervasive awareness of road side bombs makes all movements life threatening. The suicide bomber has made a potential death threat of all unidentified human beings."

How beautifully written and how scary the reality. I called it a roller coaster but i think pin pricks as tested with the amoeba is more accurate. I found it hard to let my guard down after so many pricks. And I was in the safe arms of America, not in a desert with IED's and RPG's and all kinds of bullets flying passed my head. I don't know that I ever developed the "body armor" that the author speaks of. I feel like until Mike came home I was in a constant state of being pricked.

A wonderful book has come into our hands, War and the Soul…healing our Nation’s Veterans from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (Edward Tick, PH.D.)
In his book Edward Tick talks about soldiers telling their story and it being validated and becoming part of the collective wisdom of the community.How often does this happen?Most vets don't share their stories. Many don't want us to know what they saw and did. They struggle themselves with what they had to do. They feel individual shame or confusion. Or:

"Veterans most often withhold their stories, not only because of the pain evoked in telling them but also because they fear that, in our culture of denial, we won’t properly receive them." Without telling their stories they, "become stuck in the role of scapegoat, carriers of the tribal shadow. If we are to redress this situation, we have a profound responsibility to be a supportive audience for those who went to war in our name."(p221)

This book deals with many of the issues we, as parents of a young Marine, fear. That Mike would lose himself and not know how to get back. We gave Mike a copy of this book. We also gave his doctor a copy and the mother of his girl friend. We would like everyone to read it so that as a culture we may better be able to help those we send off to war to return to some sense of normalcy by honoring where they have been and what they have had to do. Our military is asked to “descend into the abyss of human and earthly nature,” and there to learn, “that which he or she did not want to know - the brevity of life and love, our human capacity for destruction, our smallness and helplessness against existential forces.”(P.253)

And what we have learned about what it means to be a warrior we learned from Mike. Edward Tick, in his book says it well. (War and the Soul p252)

"A veteran does not become a warrior merely for having gone to war…He becomes a warrior when he has been set right with life again. A warrior’s first priority is to protect life rather than destroy it. He serves his nation in peace as well as in war making and dissuades his people from suffering the scourges of war unless absolutely necessary… A warrior disciplines the violence within himself. Internally and externally, he stares violence in the face and makes it back down. A warrior serves spiritual and moral principles, which he places higher than himself. The role of warrior has a high, noble, and honorable status."

Jerry and I feel that Mike has high and noble visions and we are honored to have him as our warrior son.He has led us to a place we never dreamed we would go. He has shown us courage and integrity.

A Memorial is dedicated to the Lima Company Marines in May 2008. Jerry and I are there with Paul Schroeder and Rosemary Palmer are there. Many 3/25th Marines are there including some still recovering from injuries. And there are many dignitaries to speak including Senator John Glenn. Speeches are made honoring the Marines and the work they accomplished in Iraq.

And the artist who created the memorial speaks. She like many in Ohio was grieving when she heard the continual stories of the deaths of our fine Marines in August, 2005. She wanted to do something to help but didn't know what. A vision awoke her in the night and she saw the memorial she was to create. She began the work of creating it, eight life size portrait panels of the 22 Marines and the Navy Corpsman who died during their tour.

Mike comes to Columbus to attend but then chooses not to. He isn’t the only Marine who doesn’t come. Some do. Some don’t. Some can’t. They will see the memorial and pay their respects when there is no one else there. All the people and the speeches may be too much for some of them.

I see the wife of the Navy Corpsman, Travis Youngblood with her children, her young son Hunter, who was only four when he lost his daddy and her now three year old daughter, Emma, who never saw her father. She is telling them as she gently strokes the artist rendition of her Travis, to “say good-bye to daddy,” all the while she can’t pull herself away.

When she finds no place to hide, maybe she and her children will develop “body armor.” But I hope that his story will be told over and over to her children so they will understand that their father did something for the community that few men do. He gave all.

(From my book, Skin in the Game: Journey of a Mother and Her Marine Son)

Love peace.

I Can't Begin to Title This

Voicing my feelings allows me to pass along some of the grief and the anxiety I feel. I can be as anesthetized as many Americans to the pain of the world. I am kept safe and all my basic needs are met. I have more than I need. I am comfortable. I am well fed. I have water and shelter and a job if I want one. I celebrate holidays by blowing off fireworks and think nothing of the fear those sights and sounds create in those who have known war. Nor the waste in energy and the pollution they may cause. After all, pleasure is most important. My American life is cozy. I don’t want to be bothered by a world that is suffering and war that is always and has always been somewhere else.
I see a different view now and feel a different story. Now I am immersed in this war and I realize grief and anxiety as daily baptism. So I pass it on to others so that they may know how close this reality is. How real it is. How painful it is. How universal it is. Maybe through the expression of my pain, others will feel the pain and grief of war and help do something to bring it to an end. I reach out in my anguish and flame a deep, deep fire that eats away at our country until we find a better solution to war. And I know I will curl up and become an ember in that fire if my son loses not just his life or limb, but his soul. War does just that. It kills not just bodies. It kills the soul.
I write my personal reflection of the funerals and send it to my list.

Family and Friends,
I can’t even begin to title this subject. The viewings, the funerals, the burials, the candle light vigils, the military honors are over for now. We were able to attend the services for the five local Marines. We went in support of our Marine families. We went for Mike. What a tragic and huge loss. There are no words for the loss.
Each service had a full screen video celebration of the particular Marine’s life from childhood to young death. The age range of these Marines was nineteen to twenty-six. Their lives had just begun. One was a new father with a seven week-old baby he never saw, or held, except in his dreams. “He was so proud to be a father,” said his uncle while paying tribute.
We heard their stories. How proud they were to be Marines. How proud their families were of them. How treasured they each were. How they each wanted to make a difference.
Some of the songs chosen for the videos, “You’re Still You,” “A Breath Away,” “The Dance.”
We watched four mothers and one wife receive the flag. We heard a sister wail. We heard the 21 gun salute too many times. We saw the caisson carrying the flag draped coffins and the rider-less horse with boots turned backwards. We saw streams of people weeping, leatherneck motorcyclist who tried to attend every funeral of their fallen brother Marine.
We saw policemen, firemen, enforcement officers saluting and stopping traffic along the miles of those in procession on the road to the gravesite. People standing, watching, weeping, saluting as the whole procession drove by. We heard each minister try to bring words of comfort to those who had no comfort.
We saw Marines in their “Blues” being present, being strong, and being brave. Some were injured in Operation Matador and had returned with their wounded bodies and now came to bury their brothers who came home in pieces. We saw Marines weep. The Marine Major who just came to Ohio and is getting to know the state by attending these funerals told me he has an 11 week-old son.“ Oh,” I said, “It’s more real now. You can relate.” With moist and reddened eyes he gently nodded. The Chief Warrant Officer from Columbus, dressed in his formal Marine Blues who we had seen over and over again at the funerals, hugged me and said,” I know we look and act strong, but we feel this deeply.” He too had tears in his eyes.
And then there were the mothers. Although they already buried their Marine they continued to support the other Marine family by attending each funeral. But while watching the video tribute to another Marine, one mother saw a picture of her already buried son and could not contain her grief. We tried to hold her as tears poured while she struggled to catch her breath and subdue her shuddering body.
The rest of their life begins with tremendous pride, and tremendous grief. The mothers. The wife. The fathers. The children. The brothers and sisters. The families.
One father said to me, “ No one ever thought this would happen.”

Chapter 34 from my book, Skin in the Game: Journey of a Mother and Her Marine Son

Lest we forget. Memorial Day.