“In Honor of the Dead Still Living”

Posted on May 30, 2006 in Compassion War

Sometimes I wonder who was “luckier.”

Was it the guy in the thick of an attack, scared beyond his worst nightmare but doing his best despite the situation, who took a bullet between the eyes and perished in an instant?

Or was it the one that could never escape the demons? The one who still heard the blast of cannons, the whistle of mortar rounds, the screams of wounded, friendly and enemy alike? The one who came home, either to victory parades or protest marches, and could never fit back in? The one who kept fighting the demons, year-after-year, down a lonely road lined with pink slips, divorce decrees, arrest warrants, bottles and syringes?

Perhaps it is telling that instead of GIs killed on the field of battle, I know more ex-GIs who died by their own hand long after warfare “officially” ended but continued to rage in their tortured psyches.

Sam Venable
Knoxville News