Zander's Inside Voice

Sangin, Helmand province, near the Kajaki Dam…one Chinook helicopter is shot down, supposedly by multiple rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). I was there, 30K+ feet above it all. We moved to assist the recovery operations. The helicopter had been on fire when it crashed so there were definitely no survivors.

Then there was an ambush on the recovery forces. It was one of the worst things I have ever heard on the radio in my entire military career. From what we heard, they recovered the bodies and had to get out quickly. The only way the wreckage could be further destroyed was by bringing in an AC-130 gunship to shoot it up and also take out insurgents. I will never, ever, as long as I live, forget the sound of that AC-130’s guns. There’s movies and museum exhibitions with real sound that I cannot tolerate to hear, even for one second. For months after this mission, all I could hear when I closed my eyes was the AC-130. It became the sole sound that represents that day, that moment. There were voices and I can remember some of what they said but not how their voices sounded.

It’s been 16 years this year. I have started talking about it. Not even talking about it more, just talking about it at all. i have said the words out loud to my therapist. I have shared the feelings I felt at the time and since then with my therapist too. But I still feel like this event will never leave me. Even though I never felt in danger personally, the event took something from me. It made me realize that every day you get to live is precious. It also made me frightened of everything. It stirs panic up inside me that feels like it will never go away completely.

I’m calmer than I’ve ever been these last 16 years and the nightmares aren’t chasing me anymore. It’s taken things like medication, years of therapy, and removing myself from my former shitty home life. But every May, I start to remember. One year I was so busy I forgot. And when I realized I missed it, that hurt even more. Like I forgot about those guys.

This year seems like the worst, mainly because of lal the developments leading me to ask the questions like was it worth it? What were we even doing there? Why did no one care? And most of all, who did I used to be before I got broken? Was I scared of everything back then? How do I get from here to a place where I can just let go of all these questions with no answers? How do I tell the kids that when I’m distant, I’m just in another country where people were dying and for what reason? Did we really do any good over there? Did we lose these people for a lie? I couldn’t look these families in the eye and tell them they lost their loved for a good reason. Or even a logical reason.

Every time I hear about proposals or suggestions to cut VA funding, I want to slap politicians and the mindless drones working on budgets just in terms of numbers and savings. You stand behind veterans. The hell you do. Send us to war to have us lose our sanity and our physical health. Ignore the burn pits, the mold, the rotten food, the piss poor sanitation. And then we come back and have to fight for our benefits. We have to fight a system designed to prove that we don’t deserve what we earned. A system that wasn’t designed for this new type of war where the injuries are less physical and more mental.

War isn’t for the rich. War is for the middle class and below. It’s a way to get out of a crappy situation or a crappy town. To walk away from your family or to find a new family. It provides a way to earn education benefits and make money. There’s guaranteed cost of living increases and since 2011, a good chance you may have to survive a shutdown where they tell you a month prior that you should have three months worth of pay set aside anyway. They move you when and where they feel like it and sometimes you get some say in the process. But mostly you don’t. The rich people ignore your existence and go along with their money-grabbing ways. The poor and middle class thank you for your service and they mean it. They look down at their little boy and hope that one day he will be brave and join too. No one should join. No one should put themselves into this system willingly, even for an escape from something else. It’s all shiny and new on the outside, but the military machine on the inside is designed to eat you up, spit you out, and replace you the second you are gone. You are just a service number. A tiny percentage of the “end strength” that can be used to go fight some bullshit war somewhere else.

I watched The Rock shortly after I retired and the beginning scene with Ed Harris hit me like it never had before. No, I wasn’t special forces and I didn’t fight in some unsanctioned battle. But I understand what it feels like to carry this burden, this mess inside you that lives with you every day while the rest of the country goes about life like nothing else matters. Like everything is ok. They make stupid memes about this president or that president making more debt in peace-time that others did in war-time. WE WERE IN WAR TIME YOU IDIOT. Some of us will permanently live in war time, thanks to decisions made by rich people for their rich people reasons.

You can look at the METRICS and say stupid things like, “Well, so many more died in Vietnam and during the World Wars…” Yeah. tell that to the families who still lost someone. Tell that to the families who got their loved ones back, but broken and couldn’t go on living anymore. Tell that to the families who help their loved ones try to stay alive every day. Tell that to MY wife, who helps me through the nightmares when they break through the medicine. Tell that to MY kids, who don’t understand why I go distant sometimes, or when I used to rage before I got into therapy. Tell that to my parents who feel desperate to help but I can’t let them in. People aren’t just a number. And May 30th will never be just a date to me.