Guest blog by Michael Zacchea
Memory is painful. The more I remember, the more it hurts. There is a deep, dark part of me would rather not remember.
I was speaking to some veterans recently, from a variety of American conflicts. World War II. Korea. Viet Nam. The Gulf. And most recently, Iraq. They all admitted to similar feelings.
I spent a year in Iraq, from March 2004 to March 2005. Alone with my memories, I find myself starting to forget. I re-read my journal and saved e-mails to remember my experiences in Iraq, and the people I shared them with. I look at the pictures we took.
As soon as I am finished, the images and names begin to fade from my mind. Particularly of the fellows with whom I served who were grievously wounded or killed.
It's a weird phenomenon, one veterans of other wars have experienced. When a soldier or Marine is killed or grievously wounded in Iraq, it is the crisis of the moment - in the context of the event, whether an attack, and IED, a mortar or rocket attack, any number of ways the insurgents have figured out to kill the best and brightest America has to offer. And everyone around the unfortunate soldier or Marine responds with a sense of urgency appropriate to saving the life that hangs in the balance. In a half hour, the wounded soldier or Marine is on his or her way to the nearest Combat Surgical Hospital. Within 24 hours, he or she is being flown to Germany.
And that's the last we know of them, at least while we're in theater. Then we move on to the next immediate crisis, the next attack, the next suicide bombing. There might be some quiet talk, maybe a prayer for the departed (literally) soldier or Marine, and then the moving soldier's tribute to their fallen comrades. One day they are there, the next day they are not. And we move on to the next crisis.
I'm told that the fading of memory is a defense mechanism. I can understand that. How could any of us go on another convoy after seeing one of our own ripped to shreds and burnt by an IED, if we held the images in our minds? How could any of us raid an insurgent hide-out if we were thinking about a comrade shot in the face at close range by an AK-47?
Then there is the guilt. In our secret hearts, all of us say a silent prayer, thanking God it wasn't us. And that is not fair to those left behind of the soldiers and Marines killed or wounded, the parents and spouses and children, those left to try to put back together their shattered lives, and left with their own memories. The guilt is leisurely, because no one is shooting at us. There are no IEDs when we drive on the highways. We have the rest of our lives to feel guilty, and to grieve. In war, the guilt is assuaged by the immediate task at hand, the next mission, and its inherent danger. It could be any one of us next time.
Memorial Day is difficult for me, because memory is painful. It hurts to think of the men I served with who were killed, or traumatically wounded. Dylan Thomas wrote in his elegiac poem Fern Hill:
Citizen-soldier Mike Zacchea is a major in the reserves who has served In Iraq, Haiti and Somalia, receiving numerous medals including two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart.
Thoughts shared by many. There are those that speak of war as boys, delighting in the brutality and competitiveness of combat. But I have never known a man to speak of war as anything but a burden to endure and relive in tiny flashes of memory, remorse, and sadness remembering the faces of his fallen comrades, and the imagined fates of their families as they are flown to hospitals, never to be seen again. It is this noble burden of the soldier that compels us to look for ways to avert aggression and by doing so discover man's true nature. It is not in the blood and sweat of mortal combat, but in the endeavor that Jesus taught us to undertake, even as He Himself lay dying on the cross at the hands of men. It is courageous to speak of the horrors of war and to seek alternatives to war, and Christlike to act on them.
Posted by: Joe at May 25, 2006 10:35 PMIt is good to hear the discussion. In my part of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, I was also exposed to the violence and death of good guys, bad guys and innocents caught in the middle. My memory hasn't faded much. I see faces and the phenomenal actions more prominently than the sadness. Watching normal dudes do incredible things. Soaking up the horrors and finding the beauty despite of them. Exposed to beauty because of the contrast.
Fortunate,sad, proud, lucky and blessed.
Posted by: evolo at May 27, 2006 05:37 PMThe men and women of our Armed Forces are doing all they can and we should do all we can to honor them. Throw the bums out who make them have to prove twice that they have a PTSD (that's right I'm talking about Rep Buyer trying to make them qualify TWICE.) Send the ones packing that cut research into prosthetics. I heard that one guy up North had to use DUCT TAPE to keep his prosthetic from falling off. We need to give the heave ho to the ones who make them have to take and retake the same chunks of territory because they decided to send a troop size big enough to have them fight valiantly, but small enough to have them do it OVER and OVER AGAIN. So lets honor them by giving them the leaders they deserve. In November, we have a chance to show them how much we love them by electing LEADERS.
Posted by: BW at June 1, 2006 10:24 PM