HAHA, I said laughing as the temperature dropped. In order to keep from freezing I lit a candle to get warmth in the igloo. Then like being squeezed in rear choke, I realized that those painful itchy numbing appendages I knew as my toes, are just part the drivetrain on this meatsuit that belong to Uncle Sam. Toes that were once carefree and easily cleaned in any first world country scenario are now having to be managed hourly. Toes are one of the many tools of the machine used to grip the ground beneath the terrain as I painfully recall the reality of being a pack-mule in my uncle’s Service. I’m a machine, trained to the highest standards, meant to perform in any environment without the assistance of world class gear, or world class coaches. I’m reminded that I am the end user of the products from the companies making the gear that got the contract because it was the lowest bidder. That was my rudimentary understanding of one of the facets of this gigantic military industrial complex.
Being placed in any part of the world, often without anyone watching, no one to lend a helping hand, whether physically or mentally I was sworn in as they say with my ethos, doctrine, and my creed that I now live out in my mind on an hourly basis. the fanfare of the masses cheering me on as any soldier in my shoes would have seen and felt in the holiday Parade celebrations or the air shows with the big crowds that inevitably come with the territory were all but a distant memory. Then my thoughts came to my loved ones back in CONUS, going about their day, do they even know or care for the tremendous load I am carrying or the depths to which they are allowed to enjoy their civilian way of life, eating, drinking, sleeping as they so wish. I suppose a quick quote from General Smedley Butler would have been fitting right about now, but that read wouldn’t come for some 25 years later, after many injuries which culminated an end to a career that was hobbling soon after it started.
Cold, wet, tired and hungry has been the zone in which I spent the majority of my time in uniform. Within the first year and a half I recall thinking long gone was the excitement and pride of picking and successfully competing infantry as my primary military occupation and then navigating the pipeline though sometimes painful yet invigorating experiences that got me to this point. Long gone is the cognizant realization of the honor associated with just being named among many who have gone down this path. Now, pain is my closest companion, always speaking sometimes shouting but ever-present. Almost from the first month until the last year in uniform it has spoken volumes. Those volumes continue to speak to both me and my family and it is only recently that I am able to talk about it thanks in part to the many professionals like this author, a fellow veteran.
The why. Why do we do what we do? Why is it that some young men go and do hard things... Well, that topic is not really suitable for dissecting at this point, but generally speaking I think all the general reasons apply to myself, honor and duty to king and country, personal challenge, and programming all probably rank pretty high. The question I have and that fits more for the scope of this work is why do we push through injuries. The answer is profoundly complicated and at the same time simple. It could be any number of these examples: herd mentality, group think, afraid to admit weakness (injury), fear of missing out on the next mission, the unknown, losing all you’ve worked for, realizing you’re just a cog, and no real comforting assurance that anyone you know will ensure that you have a place at the table if you do admit your injured.
The possibility of your story winding up like one of the many stories that get passed around where a young warrior, injured, got passed down to some subordinate nearby regular Army unit and is now working in their motor pool or worse yet sent overseas to some regular infantry unit as a gopher for the unit administration. Secondly, Trainers and physical therapists aren’t exactly part of unit or at least they were not prior to 9-11, so with no one but your buddy to your left or right to confide in, where the chief complaint on your injury might quickly turn into a bitching session, your only alternative was to go see the ‘doc’ a term used to describe the company medic who could be a little newer than yourself or just a little more tenured in time in the unit.
Obviously unless a soldier is medivacked off the battle space, then injuries happen and it is up to the individual to self-report and seek help. Using Army terminology, the unit’s medic is the first gate keeper. He is usually going to say drink water and take some ibuprofen. He usually doesn’t do much unless your going to push the matter, then based on his instructions from the senior medic above him he will take you case and run it up the chain of command so to speak. But whatever one decides, there are only 2 choices. Push on or throw in the towel accepting a sometimes-nicer job in uncle’s service maybe pushing papers in the three shop which a glorified way a saying sitting down. No harm no foul, except the for the voice inside questioning what if you’d have pushed through, and that for me was the voice that seemed to speak the clearest. After my combat jump and subsequent equipment not working as expected, I burned into the ground as it is called, and was knocked out. What were my options. There are no time outs and adrenaline takes over at some point. When the time came to report, I chose not to say anything and that ended up being a painful decision. Was it wrong? I don’t have any idea; the damage was done. Already having been knocked out twice in uniform and getting some serious headaches and memory issues with standing close to my detonations being the demolition guy, I was already getting headaches every day and seeing stars.
So, at what cost did the unknown path take? Well, headaches, outbursts, tears at the most inappropriate times, no longer able to remember serial numbers, needing to write stuff down so in five minutes I’d be to accomplish the task I was assigned, inability to carry on conversations because of lack of word finding and too slow to keep up with a conversation the thoughts would eventually come to me but the moment passed me by to convey a thought at the right time. The call to duty takes on many forms for many personalities. When I volunteered for Special Operations Infantryman, which may be helpful to summarize for those who haven’t served, is basically: taking a civilian, giving him the ability to rise up and embrace a culture of a professional warrior, with all the pride, pomp, dress and formality of military gallantry and then handing him the life of a pirate. I signed my own commitment with my words regardless of how I felt about it. As the creed states: my country expects me to move further faster and fight harder than any other soldier. It was a kamikaze mission that requires death to self and many first world decencies and kisses goodbye to the novelties and niceness typical Americans and humans enjoy and catapults you into the world of accepting the mission of dealing out death as a way of thinking, breathing, and operating in any given moment on planet earth. One cannot easily shut it off, as I have encountered, mask it maybe but it is always there. Get around some regular service members and or civilian contractor normies on base and it becomes evidently clear that you are different. No other place I have encountered screams of being a modern pirate than in Special Op’s. I suppose to take an old joke that is familiar to everyone and form that into this scope it would be why did the chicken cross the road? In a special op’s it would be to kill. It’s only all about slinging death and violence of action on the objective. How does the service separate these types, they ask them to volunteer, and matriculating through that process the soldier winds up realizing that the wheel house is in embracing the suck fest, the cold, wet, tired and hungry part of the game because that is the starting point to continuing the mission and maintaining the mindset that no matter what, I have a team that is counting on me.
Uncle Sam has some cool gear, guns and rides and it is a great ride until it is not. Until your injuries catch up with you and you realize you’ve been playing Army and missed out on that higher education or learning a trade that would have provided you with a seemingly concrete career in the civilian sector better yet taken a military job that would have crossed over into the civilian sector, but that seems like wisdom that isn’t becoming of the younger me.
Currently, it is a real mess. I used to perform life and do activities from a place of raw strength and with clarity of mind. Now activities regardless of how mundane need some sort of internal stirring up in order to push through the pain in order to engage the will power to move. Then attempting to harness energy it is as though I’m in a fog. Meanwhile, the program is running in the background. That stay vigilant program that says I’m still fighting a war and that doesn’t seem to go away. So to say it’s a mess is accurate. No one seems to understand and I realize at some level of reasoning it seems I have been incapacitated at many levels. Whether it is a wave of lifelessness to sometimes to sometimes a face bearing the flattened affect from having a head injury and out of energy as my family looks on.