A Captain At War: What I Wrote

It came from nowhere. A shot out of the blue. 

I used to really struggle to write. Anything longer than a terse email was a real chore. But this time...

A long summer day was coming to a close, the grandson brought his parents for a visit. Ethan suggested we write instead of watching the lovey-dovey BS the ladies enjoy on television.

I fumbled around a bit, and after a few hesitations, I started to think of important moments in my life. A few things came to mind and then I thought about that damn mud. I closed my eyes and thought of what I could remember of lying there. I thought about Iraq. For the first time in a long %$#@ing time, I thought about Fallujah. 

I wrote. And I kept on writing. 

I let my eyes fill with that warm water. I felt my heart pound (it pounds even now) the way it did when I thought I was going to bleed to death in a garbage pile. I smelled the acrid bite of the smell of high explosives and human waste. I remembered Gunny’s face peeking at me with a serious smile (that’s the only way I can describe the look) concerned more about me than he was about himself. 

It was a mess in my head. It was a mess there in the alley, reeling from the IED explosion, but my head was spinning again. And I wrote it down.

What was the outcome of the war time experience? How did it change me? I didn’t have the answer to those questions. What I did have was stories.

The story that came out was told in the third person. Not usually what you get in a memoir. It felt better that way. Just telling a story. No goal, no timeline, no outline; just remembering and trying to go back without really going back.

I got a lot of good reviews on the book. But really, you’d go pretty damn far to find the troll that would waste his time bashing my little book. I reckon most people who read it felt a bit obligated. You know, the whole ‘Thank a veteran’ thing.

Not trying to condescend, believe me I know it is sincere and I love that about America. Just hard to know what to say.

No one talks to me about the specifics of what I wrote? That bothers me. Are they afraid? Do they even read it? Is it just not something people want to talk about? Did I explain it so well that no one has questions? I don’t even know what I want.

I do know this, by the time it was done I didn’t even want to release it. Just print it out and leave it with my effects when I shuffle off this mortal coil.

I still don’t know how I feel about it. Good thing feelings don’t matter much. 

On to the next thing.