NO PARADE FOR THESE VETERANS by Jack Wilson

The first parade I recall ever watching was Armistice Day 1938.

Bands playing, flags flying, lots of horses, and real live soldiers, some with stumps where hands, legs, or arms should be. A few declined the proffered vehicles and struggled valiantly on crutches; one or two rolled in wheelchairs.

The little boy in me was enormously impressed. Although I didn’t really understand what it was all about I knew I was seeing some very important people. Just how important, and what it all has to do with me, has been a growing revelation through all the years since.

The change in designation from “Armistice” to “Veterans” was appropriate. Better than saying, “Hooray, we won!” is saying “Thank you” to and for the still living men and women who did the winning at unfathomable personal cost.

I never earned the right to march in a Veterans parade. I know some who have, and there is no way our gratitude however elaborately expressed can match their gift. 

But there is one group of military veterans we will likely never see in a parade. One of them is my eldest granddaughter.  Her husband served 20 years in the Special Forces. Everything you have heard or read about what Green Berets do, he has done. Here are excerpts from one of her letters to me.

(Note: Following the 1999 release of the Academy Award film, “The Hurt Locker”, the term became part of the vocabulary of military people.)

“Army wives have their own kind of hurt locker; and we protect our husbands from it, just like they protect us from theirs.  Not because there need to be secrets, but because you love one another too much to make an already hard situation more difficult. 

It used to frustrate me that I seemed to be the only wife who didn't know all the details from her guy’s deployments; that I had to wait until they got together and had a few drinks in them before I ever learned anything that went on.  At the same time, I always knew that it was because he loved me that David didn't tell me everything. He said he couldn't see how it would have been helpful to give me the details on how horrible it all was, knowing that he would be going back into that again. He loves me.

 

In fact, he only started talking once he was retired, and even then very little.

I haven't imagined David's funeral for a couple of years, now. But I used to have a plan for it. 

Before each of David’s deployments, I had to name a civilian person to accompany the Casualty Assistance Officers to my house. Several of my friends have called me and said, "You're my person."  You say, "OK" and then you never mention it again, because you both know what it means. 

I had detailed plans for what I would do if I got notified while the kids were in school, or at home; who would take care of them for me while I was making arrangements; where we would go and what we would do afterwards. 

Attending a fallen soldier's funeral, whether you know him or not, brings it all home that you could be next.  My girlfriends and I used to go to funerals together for moral support.  Our husbands didn't work together.  If someone from one of our husband's units was killed, we'd go together so we could hold hands. Then we would pick up our kids and go to one of our houses, give them pizza and soda, plop them in front of the television, and go into the kitchen and get drunk.  We'd have one big slumber party; cry because you felt like such a dirt bag because all you could feel was happy that it wasn't your husband's boots and gun on display at the front of that church; laugh because you knew you were with people who understood that you absolutely HAVE to be able to do that so you can get up and be happy mommy for your kids the next day.

 

 When he was deployed, I used to take the telephone with me into the bathroom while I showered; and would sometimes turn off the shower in a panic because I thought I heard it ring.  Never wanted to miss a phone call from David; I never knew if it would be the last one. 

If practicing for a funeral doesn't sound bizarre enough, I had to stop going to church for a while because I would actually turn away from the altar after communion and think I saw him walking down the aisle. 

After David did come home I used to lie in bed at night and cry while he had bad dreams, never waking him, because that's the last thing you want to do.  Knowing that there's a part of him that I can never heal just by loving him feels pretty bad.  And being married to a man whom you will never fully know has its own challenges. 

I used to watch David with our babies, and try to imagine those big gentle hands in combat. I actually used to be able to picture only his hands but not his face. You know it must be really hard for him to be two completely different people at the same time, and it makes me love him even more.

I guess we all come away fractured, yet somehow better people. Husbands and wives have their own separate forms of PTSD, but I would never have missed it for the world. I would never have wanted David to be less than he was, or to be something other than a Green Beret. 

It was a full and happy life. I am strong because of the experience.  I was able to be part of a community of people who really know what it means to love this country. Military families are tested in ways that most people can't imagine; but we come through it because we know that there is something way bigger than all of us, and it's worth fighting for. I think a lot of people hear things like this and think it sounds cliché. It only sounds cliché if you've never lived it. 

I'm glad I did.”