This week I was going through all Iraq files from the 2005 to 2006 deployment in which I came across a file which would have been my last will and testament. Ironically, during the podcast Dan Carlin’s blueprint for Armageddon part 4, he brings up how damaging the war was on the small scale. He talks about the The Somme offensive of 1916 and one such last letter from Captain May’s diary, addressed to his wife and baby daughter Pauline, who was born in 1914.
“I must not allow myself to dwell on the personal – there is no room for it here. Also it is demoralizing. But I do not want to die. Not that I mind for myself. If it be that I am to go, I am ready. But the thought that I may never see you or our darling baby again turns my bowels to water.…My one consolation is the happiness that has been ours. Also my conscience is clear that I have always tried to make life a joy for you. I know that if I go you will not want. That is something.
But it is the thought that we may be cut off from each other which is so terrible and that our babe may grow up without my knowing her and without her knowing me. It is difficult to face. And I know your life without me would be a dull blank.
Yet you must never let it become wholly so, for you will be left with the greatest challenge in all the world; the upbringing of our baby. God bless that child, she is the hope of life to me.
My darling, au revoir. It may well be that you will only have to read these lines as ones of passing interest. On the other hand, they may well be my last message to you. If they are, know through all your life that I loved you and baby with all my heart and soul, that you two sweet things were just all the world to me. I pray God I may do my duty, for I know, whatever that may entail, you would not have it otherwise.”
I think, most Veterans carry that burden of knowing and accepting the fate of “the end”. A end that hopefully the Valkyrie would find us worthy and carry us to Valhalla. We come to some realization that, life will go on without us.
Surviving, however is a fate we did not foresee. It leaves a scar, unseen from those who never experience the trials. Losing those close to us, that guilt of living, can darken thoughts.
I would even go as far as those training for the day – and that day never coming can have this same form of guilt. This guilt stems from a warrior culture who romances combat and glory. Those who never had a chance may feel lost between
Combat, war, death… although an honorable sacrifice made by many, fractures the soul. You remove a piece of yourself to face the unfaceable. Don’t take this statement as callous or unfeeling (not intended to be) but I would say after facing all of that death is easier than living. In dying you return to source regroup and regenerate, in living you are forced to reconcile that a part of you broke in that process and we as a society do not have the same healings as long past to help rebuild so many fractured. Recovering those parts is possible and probably will be one of the most courageous things you could do though for yourself.
As far as guilt for surviving, perspective. The Gods chose for you to be here in this time and this space; and you could even argue they fought insurmountable odds for you to remain. It doesn’t mean the others who didnt remain were any less important, its just that this physical world has limitations.