Two Marines and a soldier from different eras, separated by generations, write about what they've seen in different wars, and find their way to catharsis, through writing. At just over 500 posts on this blog, over the last two years, we take this occasion to also take stock on what catharsis there can be through attempting to touch the darkness, and come away unscathed.
We've been reading the superb "Eyewitness to Combat" recollections of one young Marine Vietnam veteran, Pat, who spent 40 years trying to put together his story -- ostensibly to leave it to his family, but I believe, equally as much, in an attempt to explain what he endured to himself. Pat was kind enough, and courageous enough, to send me his story -- and it was hard not to be affected deeply by the story that he told, about his wounds of war.
Another former Marine, Nathaniel Fick, is whose inspiration I followed to start this blog in the first place, when he came back from war -- in his case, Afghanistan and Iraq -- and kept on caring about the state of his Marines, setting a powerful example in that regard which still echoes today. Fick is a great writer, and a great leader, and it's hard to settle on just one inspirational aspect of what he has to say. But here's an excerpt from a little-known original essay he wrote for the bookstore, Powells, in Portland, Oregon, linked here, that talks about some of his motivation for writing the exceptional, award-winning, "One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer." See how he talks about catharsis, the theme of this blog:
One Bullet Away started as a personal collection of stories. I wanted to write them down before they faded, and thought I'd slide the stack of papers into a desk drawer to show my kids someday. Gradually, though, I realized that something more than an archival instinct inspired me to wake up every morning and write. I began to see the book in terms of what it could mean for four concentric rings of people.
Perhaps self-indulgently, I put myself at the center, at least in the beginning. Writing was cathartic. There were days when I could barely see the computer screen through my tears. In time, I was able to look at the story more objectively, but I hope the emotional immediacy of those early days remains.
Next, I felt that my family and friends had to know about the things I'd done, how I'd changed. Otherwise, there would forever be a gulf between us. Many of the stories in the book don't lend themselves to dinner-table conversation, so writing became my way of telling the tale.
I was also thinking about the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and Marines who were in Afghanistan and Iraq with me, or will be there in the future. I hoped to write a book that any one of them could hand to a friend and say, "If you want to understand what it's like, read this."There are older combat stories I feel that way about, books like "With the Old Breed" and "The Naked and the Dead." You read them and feel that you've glimpsed something that transcends a particular time and place. Their human stories are identical to the human stories in Afghanistan and Iraq, and probably to the human stories at Thermopylae and Cannae, too.
The last and largest group on my mind was the huge body of American citizens who care about what's happening in the Middle East but are dissatisfied with the perspectives available to us. As a junior officer, I had just enough rank to see a bit of the big picture and to feel the weight of responsibility. But I was far enough down the food chain that One Bullet Away is still very much written from a grunt's point of view, where life is invariably hot and cold, dirty and dangerous. I think many of the tactical problems we faced ... continue to resonate at the strategic and political levels. In fact, I've already found the book to be a catalyst for discussion about topics like these. It's a jumping-off point, and people are eager to talk about what's happening ...[in the war].
Finally, a warrior from a third war, the Gulf War, Scott Lee. Social work graduate student, familiar with PTSD from his own case, son, boyfriend, dad. Scott has a lot on his plate these days, but he chronicles his struggles, victories and defeats with PTSD at this blog, linked here. Scott is at that very difficult juncture in the road, when you wonder how much truth you should really tell, and at what cost (primarily, to your own psyche). While you may long for release, each sentence takes its toll -- and ultimately needs to be paced out over time, balancing the desire for purging the horrors of war with the need to retain some semblance of wholeness for tomorrow. Rob Honzell, like Nate Fick, a First Recon Marine, but from the Vietnam war, understands that intimately: writing his book over the course of two painful years could not be done without setbacks in his own struggle with PTSD.
Valiant warriors, all. All with a story to tell. All deserving of our various "attaboys": for their courage in battle, for their desire to help the next generation and their fellow warriors, and their bravery in facing down their own demons to tell the story only they could tell. Is writing, on balance, an effective way to achieve catharsis? Only somewhat. At the very least, it puts the past into some sort of perspective, to allow the combat veteran to approach tomorrow as a brand new day, where he may make another survivor's attempt to touch the darkness, and return to tell us what he saw.
