DURHAM DISPATCH : Lest we forget what we ask
Posted on Thursday, October 2, 2008
Buried on page 11 of a recent Democrat-Gazette was a short paragraph about the casualties in Iraq. I'm running these stories again lest we forget. Keep in mind that a wounded mind heals more slowly than wounded flesh. Both are painful.
A few read the first draft of my earlier column and said that I would possibly lose readers because it was so horrible. I wrote it for just that reason. War is horrible. When we send men and women to war, we need to know what we ask of them. So please, read on.
There are axioms that those who are most eager for war are those who have never been to war. G. W. Bush and his Neocons come to mind. None of the "architects"of the Iraq War ever experienced war. They know none of the horrors of war and are not likely to experience it. They do not have the demons crawling through their brains like hungry worms when they sleep. That is what this first author, a Vietnam veteran, is not happy about.
"You know what really galls me ? How those that seem to yell loudest for war have never seen one. They've never seen a buddy disappear from the waist up after a shell hit, then see his legs stand there for a moment before falling over. They never saw a friend all psyched up about going home tomorrow after finishing his tour get hit in the belly with shrapnel, see his guts spill out, then watch him try to gather up his intestines lying in the dirt. They never saw a 19 year old screaming and writhing on the ground because a mine blew his legs off,... a man take a bullet through the brain, then watch his body flop around on the ground for a minute because it doesn't realize its dead... and they want to do it all over again ! "When I was in Africa those of the enemy we shot were called "floppies. "That's what they do right after they are shot and right before they die.
Jack, my college housemate, was one of the "Chosin Few," members of the 1 st Marine Division who made the long withdrawal from the Chosin Reservoir to Wonson during the Korean War. We argued about it over pitchers of beer. The Marines insisted they were attacking in another direction in 60 degree below zero weather. The Chinese had the high ground on the steep mountains the Marines moved through. It was a frozen, ice-covered, hellish nightmare. I could hear Jack almost silently screaming every night. My wife tells me I do the same at times.
A Marine L / Cpl called "Gunny," because he was so gung-ho, wrote these lines.
"I see a mass of shredded flesh. / I see you lying in the twisted postures of death. / Your vacant eyes staring through me, your mouth half open / from your last gasp of life, your last scream. "In another poem he wrote," When I stand before the Vietnam Memorial I hear his words echo off that wall in sixty thousand voices. / As I write I hear his words in millions of voices and hundreds of tongues. / 'Please, I don't want to die !'" "Gunny"is a friend who survived the siege of Con Thien in Vietnam with "Dying Deltas. "He has built a good life with a wonderful family, but is still haunted and continues to write.
I've written before about my close friend and buddy Milo Cumpston. He was in the first wave on Green Beach at Iwo Jima. Green Beach was directly under Mt. Suribachi. The Marines took the island but with fearful casualties. There have many words written about the battle and the heroism of taking Iwo Jima. That's not my purpose here. There is one writer who should be quoted on some of what he experienced and saw. It took his Marine Brothers 60 years to get the Colonel to write what happened to him after he was wounded. He was left handed and an excellent artist who lost the use of his left arm when a round hit it. He went through the process of being rehabilitated and, after many years, he miraculously regained the use of his left arm. He was assigned as a combat artist in Vietnam and was the Resident Artist USMC for 19 years.
I am honored that he gave me permission to quote in this column his description of some of what he saw on the cargo ship that was being used as a hospital ship. He, like all, has his own demons, his from Iwo Jima. I read this part to The Troll, who found his demons with the Marines in 1 Corps, Vietnam. When I finished, there was the profound silence of tears.
The Colonel wrote," One of the most unforgettable is a Marine still remembered in vivid nightmares. He is propped up to the side bottom of the ladder we had to take to the chow hall. All sorts of tubes, bottles and gadgets are draining multiple wounds, oozing dressings seem to be all over. All that seemed untouched were his large wide open, horrified eyes staring at you and making contact, while you were trying to avoid the fact that everything below the eye sockets of his face and skull, was completely gone. Only a gaping hole into the pit of the neck, cluttered with tubes. There were others as well, and you would nod in passing and count your blessings."
Thank you for reading all of this, dear reader, but you still have no idea.
Question authority. It's the American way.
-------Budd Saunders has an M. A. and is All but Dissertation for a PhD from the University of Arkansas. He has a military background, has worked in mental health and lectured Western Civilization at the university.
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