Maybe I’m a fool for posting this drunk after a night of wild turkey. But I think this should be posted while still drunk. I’ll probably clean it up in a post tomorrow.
The Vietnam vet has become somethign of a running gag, “You weren’t there man!”. WEll, I just walked home alone after a night of drinking. The roads were empty. I was so god damned lonely on the walk home. I walked the streets looking like any drunk college kid. But I wan’t in Moscow, Idaho. I was in Fallujah walking alone in the dark on base. I was there at camp cupcake, al asad crying, knowing the war was over for me forever and being sad it was gone. There were nights I spent alone in Okinawa. But there, in Oki, in Iraq, in the Phillipinnes, I at least felt like others could grok me. I coud fool myself into thinking there was a mission. A goal.
In Moscow I’m a man alone. Relaly, really alone. And I guess it sounds like I contradict myself, but I’m not alone. There are wartime Marines who feel the same every night, 20-30 years removed from service. There are wartime Marines, peacetime Marines all feeling the same. There is no such thing as a real peacetime Marine. For some, being a peacetime Marine is the hardest, becaucse they didn’t get the war. They didnt’ get to fight a lava monster or on a chess board. YOU don’t know what it’s like to NOT get a kill. YOU don’t know what it’s like to get a kill. YOU don’t get us. And when we come home that leaves us very very alone. That feeling doesn’t abate.
What’s the answer? I don’t know? Maybe it’s taht warhorses should fight until they die. Maybe there’s peace in death. Maybe that’s peace n the halls fo valhalla. Mabe the only peace is in the middle of f istfight. Maybe it’s shouting cadence at passing cars. I don’t know.
Many men carry a woman’s picture in their helmet. I didn’t. I carried a woman’s picture in my flak jacket flap, next to my heart. That woman left me for another man. I won’t trust another woman. Mabe that makes me a bad person. A sexist. A misogynist. I don’t know. I just know that I’m alone. I was lonely at war. I was lonely deployed. But here, stateside, I’m actually alone. There’s a difference betwen being lonely, and being alone. And you don’t know. “you weren’t there man!” 😉 I’m not the only guy that feels this way. There are thousands of us across the country.
