The things war makes you see
To this day my mind still reels with war’s usual kaleidoscope: dead kids splayed out, often in bits; screaming mates; crimson tides from al Qaeda suicide bombings creeping across asphalt. I still see … things.
Other things I cannot remember, even when told of them, but I know they haunt my sleep; I tore my left shoulder right out of its socket during a dream one Friday night; awakened by the hellish sound of someone screaming before realizing it was me. So, yes, I still see things.
Mired in a falsehood of self-medication, I applied blizzards of booze and drugs to buy me time. To get me from one dawn to another sleep. To give me the time to reconcile my decision to live. All stealing for me just one more day, one more day. Though in a perverted way it helped save me, it didn’t immunize me against the price for it all.
For now, I’m deprived of the right to see the boy I’m still here for, though he lives but blocks away and drives twice daily to school past my apartment.
Blowback
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My father fought in the Philippines during WWII. On more than one occasion, my mother woke in the middle of the night to see him peeping out the door of their bedroom convinced there were Japs out there. His buddy’s wife awoke one night to her husband choking her while holding his gun at her nose screaming at the damn Japanese.
War is hell.
Odysseus on May 28, 2012 at 7:46 PM
You could watched Ware on a disintegration chart over his MTP and Rose appearances. It was apparent he was losing his mind, and instead of pulling the guy, NBC pimped him as their “truth to power” correspondent. They’re going to make a movie about the guy someday, because the odds of him having a non-tragic ending are slim.
budfox on May 28, 2012 at 8:22 PM
?
That’s actually an excellent point…
Albeit, it’s the only one any author who has ever written any article for The Daily Beast has ever made.
logis on May 28, 2012 at 9:04 PM
Agreed. I watched him a few times reporting on CNN and he did seem to be teetering on the razor’s edge. Reading the whole article he isn’t real positive about his employers, doesn’t seem to have gotten much in the way of help from them.
Hope he finds a way to make it through.
Bennett on May 28, 2012 at 9:12 PM
PTSD (and the anxiety, depression and desire for suicide that come with it) sucks.
Were I to ask anyone to describe it none could do so as beautifully as he did.
I hope Mr. Ware gets help. As I did.
I hope he prays. For I have found that to help many a time.
And I hope he can find the peace that still eludes so many of my generation. Although I finally began to grasp it a year ago.
And I didn’t even serve in uniform.
How freaking pathetic.
SgtSVJones on May 28, 2012 at 11:45 PM
I could do the entire decade again standing on my head. Killing bad men never bothered me.
I hope you find your help Mr. Ware.
hawkdriver on May 29, 2012 at 7:30 AM
To someone who has actually been in combat, nothing in the world looks, or smells, better than a dead enemy.
From his perch in the Baghdad Hilton, Mr. Ware saw nothing but two random groups of people randomly murdering each other — and all the while he assiduously forced himself to never play favorites; to consciously reject the possibility that one side or the other might have some sort of reason for fighting.
Pretty much by definition, someone seeking perfect equanimity is always on the verge of mental imbalance to begin with. So how on earth could a good liberal NOT become insane whenever he sees any sort of conflict?
logis on May 29, 2012 at 7:56 AM