From the writer of the recent pieces on ritual and cultural healing for warriors, which we've all gotten to enjoy -- something I genuinely believe is the among the very best writing and thinking we've seen on this site this year. This is totally from the heart, and soul-level wisdom, soul to soul. He writes:
"Since writing these small pieces for your site, memories have come flooding back.I work hard at being detached and articulate, but when I get ready to send a piece, I get lost in a huge feeling of grief.
There are so many stories of love, even in the tragedy of combat, it brings me to tears. which I thought I would not have, trying to be objective in writing about combat and the soul. I am not sure I have ever had a muse, but if I do, she is kicking my ass today. I get so fucking lost in my feelings, working to objectify healing the soul.
I hope Mercury come out of retrograde soon. Just an attempt to ground myself.
Sitting here with tears, wondering WTF. You really are doing great work for warriors."
Then he quotes from a favorite poem, "The Way of the Snake" about combat trauma:
"I lost a year somewhere.
It must have been in Vietnam, I think.
The memories I have from there aren’t
real; they can’t be mine. I don’t know
whose they are, but I hope they
claim them soon—I’ve kept them
far too long.
-- Terry Hertzler, "The Way of the Snake and Other Poems: Writings from the War in Vietnam."
The writer continues:
I spent years looking for Terry, after finding his small book of poetry, and buying all six copies the San Diego store had, little knowing he lived in the same area. I used his writings with many men and women along my path. It as not until 2008, that I finally located Terry on the internet. I called him and we traded stories about his time In country, my use of his poetry, and his coming back stateside. I hope he will write about his “Achilles Tour” in coming back to America.
I write about Terry today, because he stays in my heart, as does his poems and recitations of the things he did after his return to the states. While I would love to recount stories Terry told, they are his stories, and he is the only one that has the right to tell them, however his poems show the effect of the trauma induced by combat.
I share some parts of poems, because he has given me personal permission to us his works. I am not so sure if I were as talented as he, I would be so generous.
I share these thoughts, because they reflect the view of a young warrior after war return, and know they reflect the feelings of many men and a few women I have talked with, in the reconciliation of my own deeds, and failure to understand what price my soul was paying, in all of my involvement in that war.
The fact, that I will carry some things until my death, and perhaps beyond has become less of a burden because I was seen, touched and loved by many people on my path of life. I have had, and still have, great teachers, and have been seen, as worth saving.
I have one picture of me when I was in Vietnam; it was a shock when I discovered it. It was when I began working toward understanding how I could help our returning warriors from these current wars. I could not accept how ragged, out of uniform I was. My mental picture was of a squared away sailor, not an uncovered. Shirt open to the belt, sleeves rolled up, and spiked uncut hair sticking out at angles a nineteen year old kid, standing on the bridge of our small converted LST.
That’s what happens to old veterans, the pictures are as they were, not as we like to recall. The exception is the agony of experience. A picture is perhaps in those days one sixtieth of a second. Memories are in the soul forever. As I was taught, the Huna belief is, the most powerful memories come unbidden in those unaware moments.
For one who has experienced the over pressurization of a M-2 fifty caliber machine gun, so well articulated by Colby Buzzell in his book “Killing Time In Iraq”, or the experience of thrown by the concussion of an explosion, the soul is never unaware.
It should come as no surprise that a returning warrior is hyper vigilant, startled by unexpected noise, people getting in their space, or nervous in crowds.
Returning warriors are evaluated by their chain of command with one purpose. Are they “good to go”. So basically, combat trauma is first observed and evaluated by the lowest ranking personnel in a supervisory position. Of course highly scientific terms such as “Crazy as a fucking bed bug, but I need him” is the criteria for judgment of combat trauma. Does it qualify as a diagnosis, most assuredly yes! Is the troop mentally impaired? “Fuck No! He’s just like the rest of us!”
Does obsessively disassembling, cleaning and reassembling a weapon represent a sign of combat trauma? Who is to know? Perhaps the soul has given the body a function to eliminate physical or mental distress. “Has he got his shit together” “does she have her shit together”? Good to go!
Should we as a nation, or should congress, judge the effect of combat on a person eighteen years old, “Down Range”, when our learned specialists can not agree on what constitutes Combat Trauma. Perhaps we can rely on William Blake, when he wrote “You never know what is enough, until you know what is more than enough”
I return to Terry’s writing, a few excerpts from his writing, “A Vietnam Alphabet":
'D is for dead
E is for E-1, E-2, E-3, etc. those are army ranks. The higher the number, the less chance you will fall under D.
N is for nothing
O is for officers, they often knew nothing.
P is for piece it goes well with
Q which is for quiet. Sometimes too much peace and quiet makes me nervous
R is for R&R, rest and recuperation, rest and relaxation, rest and return.
S is for my friend Sam. Also for shrapnel. Sam stopped a piece of shrapnel with his heart one night.”
-- Terry Hertzler.
Combat trauma starts the first time one hears “Congratulations, you are now a member of the armed forces of the United States of America,” and it never goes away, after experiencing personal danger. It is with us day in, day out, the rest of our lives. The severity of actual personal participation can only be judged by a person’s Soul. To be given a pill, a shot, a cup of foul tasting goop, is not healing the soul. It may deaden, kill, alleviate, delay pain in the body, but it will never heal the soul. Only a person’s soul will know, what it will take to heal their soul, and many warriors are going to need soulful help, in finding comfort for their soul.
A final poem, "Year's End":
“When I was twenty, I lost
Christmas. Like Alice’s rabbit, down
Some dark hole, it disappeared.
I remember New Year’s well
enough. At midnight, the perimeter
Despite all orders to the contrary,
lit up with red, green and white
flares, as tracer rounds
from M-60 machine guns
wove bright delicate patterns
through the sky.
But Christmas is gone and it frightens me
Christmas is gone—not veiled
in a mist of memory, or crouched
in some dark and secret corner
in my mind, but vanished, completely,
like some Cheshire cat—leaving
not even a smile behind
not even a smile."
And finally,
“we never asked to be put into this position
we never had high demands,
we never claimed to be on some kind of mission
like we had some kind of master plan,
it’s not as if we know exactly what we came for
so we settle for what comes our way,
we’re always unprepared for the final encore
what the fuck are we supposed to say.”
-- Clawfinger, "The Price We Pay."
