The Journey Continues: Understanding a Veteran
My journey this week focuses on Veterans Day. I recently read “Understanding A Veteran,” by Ray Starmann, and I want to share his views as follows:
“On Veterans Day, it is important for those who have never served to take a moment to understand the solitary world of a vet.
“Millions of vets are and have been successful in all endeavors. They are doctors, lawyers, businesspeople and a thousand other professions. Not all have PTSD, not all are the troubled, brooding, street corner homeless guy, although they exist and need help desperately.
“No matter how successful a vet might be materially, sometimes, a vet may feel alone, mentally and spiritually as they go about their day. Vets’ stories are all different, but some elements of the common experience exist.
“Many vets experienced and saw and heard and did things unimaginable to the average person. They also lived in a daily camaraderie that cannot be repeated in the civilian world. In fact, many vets spend the rest of their lives seeking the same Esprit de corps that simply is absent from their civilian lives and jobs. They long to spend just 15 minutes back with the best friends they ever had, friends that scattered to every corner of the earth, and some who gave their lives and never came home.
“Civilians must understand that for a vet, nothing is ever the same again. Sometimes, a sound, a smell, will bring a thought of active duty back…for some, the memory passes within just a fraction of a second in time. But combat veterans are haunted by visions of horror and death, by the guilt of somehow surviving and now living the good life, when some they knew are gone. Some are better at handling life afterwards than are others. That is why sometimes vets strangely wish that they were “back there” in those dreadful circumstances, not to experience the noise and violence again, but to be with the only people a vet knows will understand his emotions about conflicts, wars, and peace.
“Be it in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan or peacetime while in service shaped a time of a Veterans life that differs from how their lives are now. Some were heroes and now they aren’t anymore; some helped save others; some were in command and gave orders; some hated every second in service but now, looking back, there is pride because they served and helped defend this extraordinary United States of America.
“Part of the solitary world of the veteran is being able to enjoy complete bliss doing absolutely nothing. A lot of vets have an Obiwan Kenobi calmness because they made it out of the conflict ‘alive.’ Every day of the rest of their life is a blessing; how bad can anything really be compared to what they went through? All of this adds to the solitary world of the vet. So, this Veterans Day, if you see a vet sitting by themselves at a restaurant or shopping alone at a store, take a moment to speak with them.”(end of Starmann’s column).
Last week, a lady in the waiting room at a Houston hospital noticed my Veterans cap and came over to hand me a card that said: Thank you for loving America. I appreciate your service to our country. May God richly bless you! She made me feel “seen” in that moment. Yes, that solitary feeling is familiar to me, but I am a Christian as well as a veteran. Psalm 23 has comforted me throughout my life, especially during wartime. Psalm 23:4 (KJV)”Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff
