Tiger in Good View

Tiger in Good View
by
Chaplain Kathie

There is a tiger walking around Central Florida's Lake Buena Vista but if you drive down on I-4, you don't know he's there. Thousands of people see him everyday because they go to where he lives. Everyone else on I-4 is too focused on their own lives to even think about the tiger or his friends walking around, so they just don't have a good view of him.

People are like that. They see what they want to see and think about what is important to them during their days. There are few reminders of others living nearby them. Few see them because few go where they live. As with the tiger, while some have no clue what lives nearby but out of their view, they are still there.

Last night, as with every Monday night, Point Man Ministries had a conference call and the question about publicizing issues with veterans came up. It's something that has been a problem for a long time. If we publicize it some will think what they thought when Vietnam Veterans came home and they were drugged up hot heads ready to explode. That wasn't the case but considering all people knew about Vietnam veterans was what they read in the paper or saw in a news report, that was all they were shown. These veterans only made the news when they were arrested, otherwise, they were overlooked.

Families kept their secrets. No one wanted to talk about how they came back home anymore than other families wanted to talk about Korean War veterans came home changed. For that matter, any other generation. They knew what was going on, even if they didn't know exactly why, because they had a good view of all of it. They saw the thrashing of the sheets when they dreamed. They saw the shaking hands when memories overtook the veterans' minds. They saw the tears flow and the stunned expression on their face when they snapped back to the "here and now" away from the horrors the veterans saw. Families lived the best way possible with them accepting what was or leaving them for what could be.

A day came when someone decided they would stop being silent about what war did to veterans after their public battles were over and they were no longer paid to risk their lives but began to pay for all of it with the rest of their lives. Vietnam veterans somehow found enough support to give them the courage to talk about life after war. They forced the government to address what came home with them and all we see available today for this generation of veterans came because they opened the eyes of the public showing them what life was like for them.

Soon the public discovered that while they had read reports of a tiny portion of veterans being arrested for clashes with the law, most were suffering in silence while doing the best they could to live as normal as possible.

"Only the dead have seen the end of war" has been quoted over the years, attributed to Plato but that is up for debate. What is not debatable is the truth within those words. A combat veteran is a veteran for the rest of their lives because they have seen what war does with their own eyes. Their innocent view of mankind forever changed by what they saw, they walk away with the most horrific images overpowering the most loving. Loving in war? Yes, absolutely. There are many pictures of soldiers risking their lives to carry a wounded friend out of danger so he may live. There are pictures of great compassionated acts. All reminders that even in the midst of the worst man can do, loved lived there as well.

A nurse during the Gulf War was haunted by the voices of the dying after a several mortars struck. She had gone to get a jacket for another nurse before they left to pick up supplies. For whatever reason, on her way out, she grabbed her medical bag. The mortars started to hit as soon as she was out the door. She heard their dying screams as she tended to the living. Saving the lives of the men she could, concentrating on them, the screams had dug into her soul. She said that she is still in contact with some of the men saved that day. I told her that they are alive because she was there. She wanted to save all of them. When you look at her, she is smiling and involved in a lot of veterans events. No one knows what she is carrying inside of her except those she feels comfortable enough to share with. Her family has a clearer view of what being there to save lives did to her.

This blog is here so that you can have a good view of what is real on a daily basis. There are some wonderful stories along with terrible ones. There are stories of veterans doing so much to still help others mixed with a report of a veteran hurting others. These stories are tracked across the country because while they serve this one nation, they return home to big cities and tiny towns blending into population but as with the tiger, the only people seeing them are actually going to where they live. Breaking the silence, showing what is real to them takes the power away from fear of the unknown. Once people understand that few of the over two million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have been involved in crimes but many have returned suffering, they will no longer fear them and begin to see them.

History has shown us that this is possible because Vietnam veterans are held in high regard because they had the courage to show themselves as they are. I have a good view of them and I can tell you from what I see on a daily basis, there is not another group of people I would rather be with.

With Point Man Ministries we talk about the news reports and lament over the lives lost after combat when they are supposed to be safe. On a daily basis we're reminded of the lives saved and wonder what it will take to be able to save all of them. How is this one put in touch with help but others are hidden from the help they need? It is only because no one showed them the way. No one showed them stories about this life saved or that one healing to the point where they want to make sure others get to where they are, lovingly forgiven and able to forgive themselves for whatever they feel the need for.

The nurse felt guilty because she couldn't save all the men there that day and wanted forgiveness but she had to be the one to forgive herself and see the lives she did save. Men and women like her come home everyday after war with regrets few others will ever understand. They feel alone because no one has given them a better view of others just like them. They lose hope because no one shows them others who felt the same way but ended up on the other side of the darkness in their soul. No one showed them that the other side is more love moving in and more pain moving out. That the tiger was only something to fear when it was free to attack.

Showing them they are loved takes that power away. Being there for them everyday instead of just a couple of times a year, proves they are worth the time of someone else. That we are there when they need us instead of just when we can show up easily.