Paradise lost to veterans back home

Paradise lost to veterans back home
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
December 22, 2013

“The mind is its own place,
and in itself can make
a heaven of hell,
a hell of heaven..”
John Milton, Paradise Lost

Noble reasons make them join. They use words like duty, honor, country but most of the time they discover it really wasn't about any of those. Why choose that duty? Why choose military life for honor? Why choose it for their country? There are so many other careers they could enter into that would serve all of those, yet they choose the hardest, most demanding and dangerous job they could do in order to serve.

The reason is discovered when they are asked why they were willing to die. It was for each other.

Presidents come and go but they stay. Wars are begun by Congress and they leave office but the deployed troops stay. For many, they never thought of doing anything else with their lives. For others, as with draftees up to the Gulf War, "fate" was used to explain why they didn't refuse orders.

Wars can be a mistake and leaders can regret their decisions to start them. The people can regret supporting the belief that the cause was worth the lives that would be lost and the thousands of lives forever changed along with the treasury spent but their regrets come with a heavy price. A price that cannot simply be forgotten as their attention moves onto other things, as if they had no obligation of their own to the men and women they sent.

When troops were sent into Iraq, the American public and politicians no longer talked of troops in Afghanistan and the media focused on Iraq. Protestors took the streets against the Iraq war but no one held signs for Afghanistan even though thousands of troops remained there from many nations.

While the war in Iraq ended, troops remain in Afghanistan. The general public soured on Iraq long before the last troops left with few remaining there and now it appears they have changed their minds about Afghanistan as well. 66% think sending troops into Afghanistan was not worth the price paid but the true price paid will not be tallied until those sent are all laid to rest.

“Innocence, Once Lost,
Can Never Be Regained.
Darkness, Once Gazed Upon,
Can Never Be Lost.”
John Milton

The American people forget too easily but the troops cannot. They cannot forget the lives of those they served side by side with. They cannot forget the scars on their bodies or the cuts to their souls. They cannot forget that once they heard cheers as they left this land but returned to silence, ambivalence and ignorance. The nation was not committed to either war, asked to pay no price, shown no reminder of what they asked of them so it was easy to forget them.

“Silence was pleased.”

John Milton

We settled. We settled for the Department of Defense telling us that they were doing everything to take care of them as the number of suicides and attempted suicides went up even though the number of enlisted personnel declined. We settled when they told us that most of the suicides were not tied to deployments but did not ask what was so wrong with their mental health evaluations for recruits they missed mental illness before handing them weapons. We settled when their "resilience" training was not even enough to help the non-deployed stay alive. We settled for the congress spending billions on what was clearly not working and refusing to hold one single hearing on who was to be held accountable.

“Our cure,

to be no more;

sad cure! ”

John Milton, Paradise Lost

As the number of servicemen and women suicides went up, so did the number of veterans. They survived combat doing whatever it took to stay alive, enduring hardship after hardship, longing for home and creature comforts. Families thought they could stop worrying about lives being ended just when they had more reason to worry and in ignorance expected their veteran to just get over where they were sent and what they had to do as much as they were expected to forget what they felt.

“Gratitude bestows reverence

changing forever how we experience life

and the world.”

John Milton

What is gratitude worthy of their actions? It is allowing them to mourn and remember at time in their lives when others mattered more to them than their own lives. To support the fact that the purest form of love lived within them even during the horrors of war. That they were willing for a time to die for the sake of someone else. Willing to pay any price for what few others dared to do. Veterans are a mere 7% of the population of this nation. We are not expected to know what it was like for them but we are expected to at least understand what makes then so different from us.

“What is dark
within me,
illumine.”
John Milton, Paradise Lost

They experience the horrors of war and it consumes them so powerfully they cannot turn their eyes to gaze upon the selflessness surrounding them. That hand that reached out to comfort. The tear that was shed for a stranger. The prayer that was sent up to God for the wounded. The picture that was held of a hand fading from this earth. Love lived within them and still does back home but they cannot see it. They cannot see that they grieve because they loved. They are tormented because the goodness within them still lives and they have not become that which they fear most, evil.

That kind of love comes from great strength because it is not greatness or riches they sought. It was answering the question of why they were sent here compelled to use everything within them for others.

Greater love hath
no man than this
that a man lay down
his life for his friends.

John 15:13

To heal their souls is to heal others because they do not stop putting others first. They turn around, reach out their hands and help another veteran find peace to live a life of purpose. It is to heal the families of others not able to find the will to live on and to prevent others from enduring that wordless grief.

“...freely we serve,

Because we freely love

as in our will

To love or not in this we stand or fall:”

John Milton