Sunday, November 13, 2005
His Chest Shook. Anna Bloviations attended her first-ever Veteran's Memorial Service as part of her new 'Community Liaison' role. Taking a seat near the front of the auditorium next to the Representative, we watched as the mostly World War II veterans doddered stoically to their seats. "I don't think that one is going to make it through the ceremony," I whispered. The high school choir began their rendition of America the Beautiful and the ceremony commenced. Did I know that in six minutes everyone in the room would be crying? That tears would spill down my cheeks to sear the cynical corners of my mouth into a trembling quiver, at least for a day? It was Sgt. Jeffrey X who did it. Sgt. X looks like Sean Penn the movie actor but I doubt even Sean Penn could have done justice to this man's performance. Performance isn't the right word of course. This was no performance. This was straight from the heart and as he spoke, his chest shook with emotion. Twice he had to pause before he could continue.
Sgt. X was an army reservist who back when signed up as an army volunteer when doing so seemed like an easy ticket to getting a free college education. Did he know of the attached risks? In retrospect hardly. He was called to active duty at the onset of the Afghanistan war and later served in Iraq. As he kissed his wife and three young daughters and waved to them good-bye, it was Jeffrey X who was waving. Little did he know that in just a few months there would be no Jeffrey X left. The voice his family would hear crackling over the long distance line emanated from a man that no longer was.
Jeffrey X was lucky in that he wasn't physically wounded. No, Jeffrey X was an army medic whose job it was to treat the wounded soldiers coming in from the field -- soldiers who would have been killed surely in previous wars but who now thanks to high-tech protective armor (those who have it) stay alive. The price for their lives, however, is grimly steep. These men have shrapnel and burn wounds that have disfigured many beyond recognition. Worse: many have no limbs left to be disfigured. Far worse than the physical wounds are the emotional scars no anti-biotic, no plastic surgery, no prosthetics can heal. Sgt. Jeffrey X knows that because he himself suffered those emotional wounds. He and these men have seen and suffered things that instantaneous death had spared soldiers before them.
Sgt. Jeffrey X is a smart, articulate, good-looking man who by all appearances came back whole. But it is painfully clear that Jeffrey will be struggling with his inner demons for years to come. Fortunately he has come back to a loving family and supportive community. For the 15,000 plus wounded war veterans who have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq to the isolation of the suburbs, to the dysfunctional families that made them sign up for the army in the first place, to the towns that have no jobs let alone for men and women with no arms or legs, to the spouses who no longer recognize the person now sitting silently on the couch... they should be so lucky...
Sgt. X was an army reservist who back when signed up as an army volunteer when doing so seemed like an easy ticket to getting a free college education. Did he know of the attached risks? In retrospect hardly. He was called to active duty at the onset of the Afghanistan war and later served in Iraq. As he kissed his wife and three young daughters and waved to them good-bye, it was Jeffrey X who was waving. Little did he know that in just a few months there would be no Jeffrey X left. The voice his family would hear crackling over the long distance line emanated from a man that no longer was.
Jeffrey X was lucky in that he wasn't physically wounded. No, Jeffrey X was an army medic whose job it was to treat the wounded soldiers coming in from the field -- soldiers who would have been killed surely in previous wars but who now thanks to high-tech protective armor (those who have it) stay alive. The price for their lives, however, is grimly steep. These men have shrapnel and burn wounds that have disfigured many beyond recognition. Worse: many have no limbs left to be disfigured. Far worse than the physical wounds are the emotional scars no anti-biotic, no plastic surgery, no prosthetics can heal. Sgt. Jeffrey X knows that because he himself suffered those emotional wounds. He and these men have seen and suffered things that instantaneous death had spared soldiers before them.
Sgt. Jeffrey X is a smart, articulate, good-looking man who by all appearances came back whole. But it is painfully clear that Jeffrey will be struggling with his inner demons for years to come. Fortunately he has come back to a loving family and supportive community. For the 15,000 plus wounded war veterans who have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq to the isolation of the suburbs, to the dysfunctional families that made them sign up for the army in the first place, to the towns that have no jobs let alone for men and women with no arms or legs, to the spouses who no longer recognize the person now sitting silently on the couch... they should be so lucky...
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