This is an excerpt from my upcoming book In the quiet moments when I close my eyes, I find myself transported not to a realm of peace or escape, but to a landscape of unfiltered horror—a personal vision of hell sculpted from the raw materials of my experiences in combat. This isn't the hell of religious or mythological narratives, populated by demons or flames. It's a more visceral, tangible hell, a tapestry of agony woven from the fibers of memory and traumatic experience.
As my eyelids descend, the images begin to form— contorted bodies strewn haphazardly as if discarded by some malevolent force, blood coagulating in pools that reflect the sky’s heavy pallor. The gore is not merely an abstract concept but a gruesome reality, painted in nauseatingly vivid shades. I see faces—some I recognize, some unfamiliar—all twisted in expressions of indescribable terror. The sounds often accompany the visuals; the muffled cries for help that went unanswered, the concussive roars of explosions, the rhythms of gunfire. These auditory fragments serve as a grotesque soundtrack, amplifying the emotional intensity of the vision. What makes this personal hell truly unbearable isn't just the sensorial onslaught—it's the emotional undertow that sweeps through me during these moments. Each twisted body represents not just a life lost, but a soul impacted by decisions I made or didn't make. The blood and gore stand as a testament to the violence that I've either witnessed or participated in, its stain seemingly beyond removal from my conscience. And the faces—those anguished faces—they interrogate me without uttering a word. They ask me to justify my actions, question the worth of the cause we fought for, and challenge the meaning of honor and duty when the costs are so devastatingly high. Their eyes pierce through the protective armor I have left of my soul, leaving me exposed, vulnerable to the torment of self-scrutiny. When I open my eyes again, the tangible world may come back into focus, but the residue of this internal hell clings stubbornly to my consciousness. It's a realm I can never fully escape, a specter that turns solitude into an arena for reliving my darkest moments. And so, I carry this hell with me, a constant reminder of the toll of war, the inescapable burden of having survived, and the ceaseless quest to find some semblance of redemption or peace. This is an excerpt from my upcoming book I am a man deeply marked by the imprint of combat, a battlefield not just of dirt and sand, but of the soul itself. To say I'm flawed would be a simplification, as my very fabric seems interwoven with the complex tapestry of wartime experiences that defy any categorization. The transformation began the moment I stepped into the theater of war, and it's been a ceaseless evolution ever since—an evolution of not just in physical terms, but in emotional and psychological ones. The damage I feel manifests in a spectrum of ways, some evident, some concealed beneath layers of coping mechanisms and emotional armor. On the surface, there's the ever-present hyper-vigilance, a constant scanning of surroundings, born from an environment where the smallest oversight could have fatal consequences. Then there's the irritability, the trigger-like quickness to anger or frustration. These emotional eruptions often appear unwarranted in civilian life, yet they make perfect sense within the logic of a mind conditioned to react swiftly to threats. Further buried within are the dark complexities, the areas where my humanity was stretched to its limits, and beyond. I've been party to the machinery of death, a contributor to the undeniable devastation that's left families shattered, communities destroyed, and entire regions destabilized. I've had to dehumanize the enemy in my sights to fulfill my mission, but in the process, I've found parts of my own humanity eroded. And with every erosion, the label of ' flawed' seems increasingly understated. A particularly agonizing aspect of this is the moral injury—deep psychological distress stemming from actions or in-actions that violate my ethical or moral code. The tricky part about moral injuries is that they don't heal like physical ones. They fester, morph, and manifest in insidious ways, affecting relationships, self-worth, and views on life's purpose. Some nights, the questions torment me: "Was it right?" "Was it worth it?" "Could I have done something differently?" These are not questions with simple answers, but their weight is a constant burden, compounding the feeling of being irreparably flawed. My relationships bear the brunt of my complicated emotional landscape. Loved ones may perceive my emotional distance not as a symptom but as a choice, misunderstanding the deep-seated incapacity for vulnerability as neglect or indifference. The flashbacks and intrusive thoughts serve as internal barriers to intimacy, making the act of living 'normally' a constant battle against my own mind. I often find myself locked in a paradox: yearning for closeness and understanding while simultaneously pushing people away out of fear—fear of judgment, fear of burdening others with my trauma, fear of exposing my damaged core. In social settings, there's the ever-present feeling of being hailed as a hero and yet feeling like an imposter. The public narrative around soldiers often leaves no room for the complexities and moral uncertainties we face. I'm stuck between perceptions of valor and the haunting personal experiences that tell a more complicated story. These conflicting identities serve to exacerbate my sense of being damaged, as I cannot reconcile the person others believe me to be with the person I know myself to be. In a sense, this landscape of damage has become a battlefield of its own—a place where the struggle for self-acceptance is as fierce and unrelenting as any physical conflict I've been a part of. What complicates matters further is that, unlike a conventional battlefield where the enemy is clearly defined, the adversaries here are elusive, shape-shifting manifestations of my own psyche. There are no tactical maps to navigate this internal war zone, no field manuals outlining the strategies for engagement. The rules of warfare I once knew are inapplicable here. Instead, I'm forced to improvise, to adapt, to create new paradigms for how to cope, survive, and eventually, heal. |
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February 2024
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