"Only What You See"

Tonight, I got to have dinner with an amazing young man.   We were introduced to each other this past fall by an equally amazing young lady.   They had a number of things in common, on particular thing was their ability to express themselves through their art.   Tonight, Chris was showing me his art work that he had gotten back in school today and he showed me this picture entitled "Only What You See."   He had submitted this past fall for the St. Louis Post Dispatch's 100 Neediest Cases and it was number 19. 

For me, it spoke volumes about the perceptions that people take at face value.  People look at a woman and assume if they see a black eye that it is the result of an abusive partner that, well for lack of a better description, takes their anger out on or are part of a cycle of abuse that she has the power to walk away from.  But, pardon the pun, that is taking things at face value.  

Let us take this to the next level, combat PTSD or otherwise known as the "invisible wounds."  What is behind that black eye?  What is behind the eyes?  What is behind the tears?   What about the fears about if they say something, they will make them mad?  What about the fears of thinking that they are not doing enough or anything?   Are they wrong for thinking about walking away from that person?  Does the person even see that there is something wrong?   Has anyone thought that the person that inflicted the visible marks has so many invisible wounds themselves that are so horrific that they cannot tell about it?  In Kevin Sites's book The Things They Cannot Say, he quotes SPC Joe Caley US Army / Vietnam Veteran talking about his own PTSD "I felt guilty, basically every time you got into an argument.  They couldn't understand why you feel the way you feel.  You just get mad and you can't tell them why.  I mean, who are you going to talk to about it anyway and what are you going to say" (Sites 160).  But as a society, we judge so quickly and attach stereotypes to individuals that leave visible wounds on others.  

I am not condoning abuse or violence for that matter.   What I am saying is that as a society, as a friend, as a family member, as a spouse, a co-worker, an onlooker...ask ourselves, what are the invisible wounds?   If you know that the individual is a veteran...in fact you know that the individual is a GWOT veteran...be honest with them and with yourself as the onlooker.   You can not even begin to fatham what it is that they saw, or did.   You can not say "I got it" unless you were there.   There is some form of combat; some form of war because war is not human.   War is not humane.   War is a total different world where individuals are forced to do things that they would never do anytime or anywhere else.   A world where they are forced to see things they would never see elsewhere.   To hear, to smell, to feel, ... it is a reality that no textbook can prepare you for.   It is a reality that they do not tell you during Basic or Boot Camp, will be your reality for the rest of your life whether you intend for it to be or not.   It becomes ingrained in you.  

When I saw Chris's drawing, I immediately saw not just what was a visible wound but what was an invisible wound.  To see the extent of the invisible wounds, you look into the eyes.   For me, I look into the eyes of former students that I have sent off into the military...that I have sent packages to in far away places...and there is no longer a spark in their eyes.   There is a blackness that is haunting to this day.   There is a nervousness that others do not see.  Our society ignores the invisible by thinking out-of-sight-out-of-mind but that is so so far from reality.   The reality is that the war they were in far away is too often still going on inside of that person.  A few years ago, I had the opportunity to reconnect with a graduate from the high school that I teach at, that I had met in detention (which that seems to be a theme with the Marines that I know and is a topic for a later blog), and worked with to pass his classes so that he could go in to the Marines on time the summer after 9/11.  He did 8 years of active duty being in both the 2003 and 2005 Fallujah pushes and 2 years of funeral duty.  He and his amazing wife (a New York girl that will fight to the death for her Marine) came to hear me speak about the importance of our military around Veterans' Day.  We were talking after and I was encouraging him to come and speak with me.   Tina (his wife) thought that would be an amazing therapeutic tool in fighting his PTSD.   I will tell you that when I saw him for the first time an probably 9 years, I looked into his eyes and the spark that I loved so long ago was no longer there and it made me sad.  So we talked at great lengths on the phone after Christmas about him speaking with me in the spring to follow up the Walter Dean Myers novel "Fallen Angels."   He started to talk about Fallujah and then quickly diverted and said, "Google the battle of Fallujah."  There was some silence, and then I just said, "There is nothing that you can tell me that will make me love you any less, or make me respect what you did any less.  If anything, I will love you more and respect you more."

When you see our veterans, especially our young veterans, and you can see the visible wounds think about the invisible wounds that they carry.   Look at them and see what Kevin Sites described when talking about James, an "embittered state [...] feelings of being damaged, worthless, and guilty for even being alive" and realize that they are carrying with them "the most unforgiving postwar enemy" (Sites 121) in themselves.

To the Warrior:  There is Help....ask another Warrior and they will be there.

This is my Marine that I spoke of, Cpl Gabriel Bradshaw USMC (OIF Veteran).